A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

Trent, convoked and opened by Paul III. in 1545; continued under Julius III.; and, after numerous interruptions, brought to a close in 1563, under the pontificate of Pius IV. Its object was professedly to reform ecclesiastical abuses, but really to counteract and crush the Reformation. (See Trent.)

LATITUDINARIANS. Certain divines so called from the latitude of their principles. The term is chiefly applied to some divines of the seventeenth century, who were attached to the English establishment, as such, but regarded episcopacy, and forms of public worship, as among the things indifferent. They would not exclude from their communion those who differed from them in those particulars. Many of the latitudinarian divines commenced as Calvinists, and ended as Socinians.

LATTER-DAY SAINTS. (See Mormonists.)

LATRIA. (See Dulia.)

LAUDS. The service which followed next after the nocturn was so designated before the Reformation. It was sometimes called matin lauds. The lauds are now, in the reformed Church of England, merged in the matins. The office of Lauds contains the Benedicite and the Benediction, as that of Matins does the Te Deum. Both have psalmody and hymns.

LAUDS, in Church music, hymns of praise.

LAURA. A name given to a collection of little cells at some distance from each other, in which the hermits of ancient times lived together in a wilderness. These hermits did not live in community, but each monk provided for himself in his distinct cell. The most celebrated Lauras mentioned in ecclesiastical history were in Palestine; as the Laura of St. Euthymius, St. Saba, the Laura of the Towers, &c. The most ancient monasteries in Ireland were Lauras.

LAVACRUM. (See Piscina.)

LAY BAPTISM. (See Baptism.) Baptism administered by persons not in holy orders, i. e. by laymen.

It is a first principle in the Church of God, that no one has a right to execute any function of the ministry, till he has been lawfully invested with the ministerial office. It is also confessed that the administration of baptism is one of the functions of the ministry. It follows, therefore, that none have a right to administer baptism, but those holding ministerial authority. Here, then, there can be no dispute; laymen have no right to baptize. But what if they should baptize in spite of this virtual interdict? Is there any force or validity in an act done in open violation of a fixed principle of the Church? Here is the important question of the controversy—the very “pith of the matter;” and it resolves itself into this simple inquiry:—Suppose that a layman has no right to baptize, has he also no ability? The distinction between these it will be well to keep in view. A man may have ability to do an action without the right to exercise that ability, and so vice versâ. And again, a citizen may be in full possession of intellectual and physical qualifications for a public office; but without either right or ability to perform the authoritative acts of such an office, till these are conferred upon him by the superior power. Whence then does a layman derive any ability to baptize? We do not here mean the ability to perform the physical acts of reciting the form, and pouring the water, (for these are in every one’s power,) but that of standing as God’s agent in effecting “a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness;” in conferring remission of sins, and declaring that “hereby,” in this very act of usurpation, “children of wrath are made the children of grace.” How can any one, not a lawful minister, possess ability to this extent? With all humility we reply, that we know not, unless the sacrament work ex opere operato: and thus the Romish Church is so far consistent in allowing midwives and others to baptize. She does believe that the sacrament works ex opere operato; but is it not a little singular that the extremes of ultra-Protestantism and Romanism should here meet? If a layman should perform the external part of ordination, confirmation, absolution, consecration of the eucharist, &c., we agree in the conclusion, that this is null and void, because he has no power over the internal and spiritual part of such offices. If baptism, therefore, be anything more than an external ceremony, the same conclusion would seem to follow, for anything we can learn from Scripture to the contrary. We have no proof that Christ ever promised to sanction lay baptism; or that he conferred the power of baptizing on any but the clergy; or that the apostles ever imparted it to any other but clergy; or that Christ ever pledged himself to bind or loose in heaven what laymen might bind or loose on earth. To say the least, then, there is very great uncertainty as to the spiritual effect of baptisms administered by those whom neither the Head of the Church, nor his apostles, ever commissioned to baptize. This appears to us a manifest result of the principle from which we started: and, unless that principle be preserved, we see not how the integrity of the Church can be maintained, or how the prerogatives and powers of the ministry can be asserted; or why, except as a mere matter of expediency, there should be any ministry at all. For, if it be granted that though laymen have no right to perform priestly offices, yet, if they choose, they can perform them; i. e. their usurped acts are ratified in heaven, equally with those of an empowered ministry; this is to overturn the very foundations of apostolic order; to deprive the clergy of their Divine commission, or to effectually neutralize it; and, finally, to reduce their office, in the judgment of the world, to the low rank of a mere literary profession, or ecclesiastical employment.