Page:The Swedenborg Library Vol 3.djvu/212

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XVI.

BAPTISM AND THE HOLY SUPPER — THEIR MEANING AND USE.

BAPTISM and the Holy Supper are for those alone who are in possession of the Word, and to whom the Lord is thereby known. For they are symbols of this church [the Christian], and are testifications and certifications that they are saved who believe and live according to the Lord's precepts in the Word. (A. E. 1180.)

Baptism was instituted in the place of circumcision; and as circumcision was a sign that they [who received it] were of the Israelitish Church, so baptism is a sign that they who receive it are of the Christian Church; — and a sign serves no other purpose than to distinguish those who receive it, like swaddling-clothes put on the infants of two mothers, that they may be distinguished from each other and may not be changed. That it is only a sign of introduction into the church, is very evident from the baptizing of infants who are partakers of no reason at all, and are as yet no more fit for receiving anything of faith than young shoots in a tree. (T. C. R. 677.)

There were many among the sons of Israel, and there are at this day many among the Jews, who believe them-

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