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 tend to deny. For repeatedly does Swedenborg tell us that baptism is "the Christian sign," or "a sign that those baptized are of the Christian Church." Its first use is "introduction into the Christian church, and insertion among Christians in the spiritual world." The rite itself, by whomsoever administered, has no cleansing or renewing efficacy. It signifies spiritual cleansing by means of truth from the Word. "It was given merely as a sign and memorial that the recipients thereof are to be puriﬁed from evils." And "unless man's internal is purified from evils and falsities, baptism has no more efficacy than the washing of cups and platters by the Jews;" and "it contributes no more to salvation . . . than a bishop's gown contributes to the proper discharge of his ministerial duties." In and of itself it effects nothing, though it signifies a great deal. Being only a sign, "it does nothing more than render those baptized known as belonging to the Christian Church." Therefore it is very properly administered to a person as soon as he comes to believe in the Christian religion, and in Jesus Christ as its founder; or, to cite again the heavenly doctrines, it is properly administered to "all foreign proselytes, both old and young, who are converted to the Christian religion, and this before they have been instructed, from their mere confession of a