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 Ignatius and Barnabas, and Pamphilius and, in short, all of the most learned and illustrious Fathers of the primitive Christian Church.

Now, all of those early Christians, be it remembered, were a part of what is familiarly called the "Old Church." They belonged to the first Christian Dispensation. And so far was theirs from being a different religion from that of the New Christian Church, it is clearly seen to be the very same religion and Church in its infantile or immature state. The relation, therefore, of the New Church to the Old is by no means similar to that of Christianity to Judaism. And the idea, so prevalent among Swedenborgians, of the necessity of a new ordination, a new ministry, a new baptism, etc., is seen to be a mistaken idea, and wholly unauthorized by the teachings of Swedenborg. In the degree that the old and false dogmas which ecclesiastical councils have super-induced upon the early Christian Church, together with the selfish, bigoted, and infernal spirit that is so often the sure accompaniment of such dogmas, are cast out, and the new light and life through the New Heaven is received, the New Church is established and built up. And that this church-renewing process is steadily going on all around us, must be plain to every careful observer of the religious thought and life of our times.