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 desire to embrace Christianity." (T. C. R. n. 673, '76, '77, '78.)

Surely this is plain enough. Yet, strange to say, the Report before us ignores it all, and virtually denies its truth. Or, if not this it proclaims (without any authority) a new doctrine on the subject, which is, that a change in one's views of the Sacred Scripture and of its doctrinal teachings, as hitherto held, necessitates or justifies a repetition of the baptismal rite. The committee seem to quite overlook the doctrine revealed from heaven on this subject, and talk as if we had a right to use this divinely appointed ordinance according to our own notions, and repeat it as often as we may think its repetition would "be of great spiritual use." And they speak of it as "a most effective way of expressing belief"—not in the Christian religion merely, but in a special type or interpretation of this religion—"in the doctrines of the New Church." (!) And the Convention, by its practice, plainly declares that there is but one type of Christianity, and that the Swedenborgian type; that Swedenborgians are the only Christians now on earth, and their baptism, therefore, the only Christian or valid baptism. And how can this attitude be otherwise than offensive to other religious bodies? It is also false, and unjust to the teachings of Swedenborg, hurtful to the Con-