An Address

ON THE SACRAMENTS

OF

BAPTISM AND THE SUPPER

BY

Rev. George Field, Presiding Minister

Delivered before the Michigan and N. Indiana Association of the New Church,
at the Annual Meeting, held at Marshall, October 29, 1859

DEAR BRETHREN — In accordance with established usage, I present to you an annual address.

Different subjects have been presented to you for consideration or adoption, from year to year, bearing more or less upon the states and needs of the Church,—its progressive order and establishment on earth.  And we now seem to have come to the consideration of its ordinances and sacraments, and what is or should be required concerning them; and as your minds have all been doubtless somewhat exercised upon this subject during the past year, and as it now comes before us not only in a practical form, but in one which the welfare of the Church requires should be, if possible, properly understood and definitely settled, it has, therefore, seemed to me desirable to invite your undivided attention to some remarks concerning it.  The Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper of Divine institution.  They are, as it were ligaments or nexus uniting the Church on earth with the Church in heaven.  They take the place in the Christian Church of all the rituals sacrifices in the Jewish, and correspond to uses of the heart and lungs in the human body.

It cannot, therefore, but be important that should have a true knowledge of our duty in to them: and, in what I shall now say, you perceive that I appeal to no arbitrary rule or to no decision of merely human authority, or dictate of societies, associations, or conventions, to the law and the testimony; i.e., to the Divine law and to the testimony concerning it in writings of the Church, and in such light as shall enable it to be clearly seen by every rational mind. And, in order that it may be thus seen, we ought to know, first, what Baptism is, or what it means, before we can determine what is the duty of the Church in regard to it, or what is its relation to the Sacrament of the Supper.  Baptism, says Swedenborg, is “introduction into the Christian Church,” and takes the place of circumcision, which was introduction into the Jewish Church

The Church is described as a city, with walls and gates; and as a vineyard, with a hedge around it; and as a sheepfold, with a door or sheepgate; or as a tabernacle and temple, with inner and outer doors (ostium and janua); and these doors or gates are the modes of inlet therein.  And these “two sacraments—Baptism and the Holy Supper are, as it were, (the) two gates to eternal life,” of which Baptism is the first or outer gate, and the Holy Supper the inner (T.C.R. 721); and that the Lord is Himself the door, and that it is by Him, or by the acknowledgment of Him as the alone shepherd of His fold, the true vine of His vineyard, the tree of life of His garden, the Lord of His heavenly Kingdom, or the alone God in His Divine Humanity in His Church, that entrance can be had. To make any other confession or acknowledgment, or to come in any other way, is to be a thief and a robber, because it robs the Lord of what is exclusively His.  About this there can be no possible doubt in the mind of any one who professes to receive our doctrines at all.  But there are some who may think that baptism is not required as an external act, but is only an internal or spiritual operation; and, therefore, that the non-observance of this ritual should be no bar or hindrance to partaking of the Holy Supper.  Neither, indeed, should it, if both are placed on the same ground; as, of course, they ought to be: i.e., if baptism is only to be regarded as an internal and spiritual act, so also, by parity of reason, should the Holy Supper be also; and thus the one should be partaken of in the same manner as the other.  But if it is claimed that the baptismal sacrament at the outer door is only an internal operation, but the Eucharistic sacrament at the inner door is an outward, external, and visible one, it must be seen to be so inconsistent and so unreasonable as to need no refutation.  It is to those, therefore, who recognize and acknowledge that baptism also is an outward and visible act, the sign and token of an inward and spiritual one, that these remarks are especially offered.  If the Holy Supper is a significative, external, and visible ordinance, it is because it is a constituent part of an organic visible church, of which the baptismal service is the outer and introductory door.  To these premises it also supposed no exception will be taken.  If, therefore, we are only agreed as to what constitutes that baptism, the question must at once be settled.  But, as this is with some the disputed point, it will now be necessary to have it clearly understood.  It is commonly supposed that Baptism is only a ceremonial form of Christianity, the mode of which is by immersion, pouring, or sprinkling. with water, by a Minister, and his pronouncing over the head of the candidate the formula of commanded by the Lord, or, as Swedenborg says that “ any one might say or mutter to himself, “What is baptism but the pouring of water on the head?” and that if is nothing more than a ceremony (T.C.R. 667).  If this were so, however, it  might as well be dispensed with altogether; for in the New Church, mere empty forms can be value, and will never be tolerated, because they have no virtue in them, and are, therefore, utterly useless.  But the essential of baptism, (which is the reason why it is admission or introduction into the Church), is the acknowledgment of the Lord and His commandments, or law of life; and that, in this Divinely commanded ritual, the first thing required to be done, is to make a declaration and profession of faith, which is certified to by the sign and seal which the minister imposes in the presence of the Lord, and the congregation before whom that profession of faith is made. But this profession of faith may be a true or a false one.  If it be a false faith; if it declares a belief in a tri-personal God, a vicarious atonement, and a resurrection of the flesh; or if this is understood or implied, and the candidate assents to it, and desires (or, if an infant, his parents desire for him) to be initiated and inaugurated into its acknowledgment, as is done in the various sects of the former and now consummate Church,—which is there confirmed by testification, imposition of hands, and the application of water to the body,—how can any one believe that this is the door of admission into the New Jerusalem?  Or can any one, who for a moment thinks it is, be a proper and suitable person to be a member of the New Church, or to come to the table of the Lord thereof, bearing with him the ensign of a tri-personal Deity?  It would be like subject of a foreign nation bringing his flag him, and under it, claiming the privileges American citizen.  Is it not in reason, does it commend itself to the convictions of even the simple mind, that admission into any or organized body, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, political or moral, requires the candidate to acknowledge and profess his acceptance of the principles, covenant, constitution, or articles of that body, either by an oath, or solemn public declaration, sign, or seal, or both?  Neither is this ever left to his voluntary choice, but is obligatory.  And is not this profession the very essential of that covenant?  Of what use would the forms and ceremonies be, unless they were to ratify and confirm that declaration? or of what avail would the ceremonial of baptism be, without the profession of faith, of which it is only the correspondent sign and seal?  And is not the Sacrament of the Holy Supper the inmost act of Divine worship?  Is it not denoted by the inner gate of the temple-worship, or the Holy of Holies around which there is a plain, and beyond which is the wall of the outer gate? (T.C.R. 669)  And at this outer gate all must come in who come at all.  There the gospel of the Lord is proclaimed, inviting men to come.  There Peter stands, with his keys, to teach the truths of faith, and to admit those who receive them; or, rather, there the Lord Himself stands, the Divine Truth itself, which Peter represents, and which is to be received and acknowledged: and it is there where the servants of God receive His seal in their forehead. 

And there is no other way or mode of admission, no other path, no other gate, and no other faith, because no other Lord and Saviour than the Lord Jesus Christ in His Divine Humanity: or, as Swedenborg says, “there is only one true faith; and that is in the Lord God, the Saviour Jesus Christ, the God of heaven and earth.”  But he says, there is a spurious faith “with those who climb up some other way;” one which “adopts the falses of heresies,” and which is an adulterous faith; one “which acknowledges three Lords of one Church,—a faith which is meant by those of whom the Lord speaks where he says, “Verily I say unto you, He that goeth not in through the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, is a thief and a robber” (T.C.R. 378-380). 

Now, let it be remembered, it is not merely said that a person should thus believe, (or should say that he believes) in this faith in order to enter the gate, but that his profession must also be certified and sealed, and thus take the solemn obligation of an oath.  And the formal rite of baptism is that act of certification; which is why “he that believeth and is baptized (into that belief), shall be saved:” and every one, who believes in the ordinance at all, admits it by saying, “I have been baptized,” even though he must know that his baptismal vow was in a spurious faith,—the faith of a Church no longer in existence,—into a Church which “was Christian only in name, but not in essence and reality.” (T.C.R. 668) 

How, then, has such a person approached the inner sanctuary, or the table of the Lord of the New Jerusalem?  There are but these two universal gates; and Baptism is the outer one, the only door of introduction into the organic Church; and the essential thereof is the acknowledgment of the Lord in His Divine Humanity, as revealed in the doctrines of the New Jerusalem: because, as Swedenborg says, “the knowledge of the Lord is the universal of all things of doctrine, and thence of all things of the Church: (because) from it all the worship derives its life and soul; for the Lord is the all-in-all in heaven and the Church, and thence the all-in-all in worship” (A.E. 1325).  If this acknowledgment is, therefore, the gate of the Church, then how did he gain admission without making it?  And, if he did not so gain admission, on what plea can he even persuade himself that it is his privilege to enter the door of the inner temple of the New Jerusalem before he does gain admission by thus passing through the door of its outer tabernacle?  And yet it is said that this is an open question in the Church, or that there are differences of opinion concerning it among its members.  There may, indeed, be differences of opinion regarding it among professed receivers of the doctrines; but the teachings of the Word and the doctrines of the Church give no uncertain sound.  Indeed, they are most plain and explicit; and they appear to come home to the reason with an irresistible conviction.  And not only does Swedenborg say that none may enter the gates of the New Jerusalem but those who are in these truths derived from the good of love, but that, “if such as are aliens enter, they are not received, because they are not in agreement; and, in this case, they either depart of their own accord, on account their not being able to bear that light, or they a cast out.” (A.R. 922)  They are those described by the Lord as not having on the wedding garment.

A precisely similar obligation and requirement was commanded in the Jewish as in the Christian Church; the only difference being, that, Baptism, their outward sign and seal of the covenant between man and the Lord was Circumcision; — corresponding to the circumcision of the heart; which was, loving “the Lord our God with all the heart and with all the soul.” (Deut. 30: 6)  And as circumcision denoted the character and quality of the faith professed by the Jew, as distinctive and peculiar from that of the surrounding nations; so also baptism into the faith of the New Church in a like manner, distinguishes it from that of the surrounding sects who are in a spurious or false faith.  And no one was allowed to enter the inner sanctuary of the temple who had not been circumcised; “for thus saith the Lord God, No stranger, uncircumcised in heart or uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into My sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.” (Ezek. 44: 7, 9).  The children of Israel were prone to admix their worship with the idolatries of the surrounding nations.  They were willing to mingle with them altars, and to unite with them at their sacrifices; which, throughout the Word, is every denounced as denoting spiritual adultery.  Thus, “They sacrifice [with the Gentiles] upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills.” (See Hosea 4: 12, &c.). And they were willing also to receive them at the altars of Jehovah, in despite of the Divine prohibition.  They were commanded through the Prophet Ezekiel, to observe “all the ordinances of the house of Jehovah, and all the laws thereof, and mark well the entering-in of the house;” and the rebellious sons of Israel were constantly prohibited from permitting it to be desecrated.  “In that ye have brought into My sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in My sanctuary to pollute it, even My house, where ye offer My bread” (Ezek. 44: 5-7).  This intermingling of the true with the false, is also represented by the Jews marrying wives of Ashdod; of whom it is said, “Their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews’ language.” (Neh. 13: 23, 24).

There may, indeed, sometimes seem to be a principle of good within: but, so long as it is conjoined to an external profession of what is false, it speaks through it, producing an uncertain sound; and the good within is delivered over to those who seek to destroy it, as Samson was, when he married a daughter of the Philistines.  In such case, the real quality of that good seems to be doubtful; for we know that every one is internally joined to his own love, even without his being conscious of it.  And, if that love is not in a genuine affection for truth, it will seek to avoid making an open profession of it.  There will be felt not only an internal repugnance to doing so, but often a moral inability to do it.  It will be like the Ephraimites, who would fain have passed for the men of Gilead; but, when they tried to say shibboleth, they always said shibboleth!  And Swedenborg says, that, in the spiritual world, those who do not internally believe that Jesus is the one only Lord cannot say so; but that those who had confirmed themselves in the doctrine of a Trinity of persons, when they tried to say “One God,” “twisted and folded their lips into many folds, and could not articulate it”. They could say “Christ, and also “God the Father;” but they could not say “ONE God,” neither could they say “Divine Human,” because, in their interior thought, they did not recognize it (T.C.R. 111).  And it can only be for a similar reason, however much it may be concealed from us, that there is in this world such a repugnance to openly avowing it, or to making this profession at the door of the New Jerusalem.  Many are willing to come to the inner door, where no such profession is required to be made, who are yet unwilling to come in through the outer door, where it is required; although that door is always open, and they are continually invited to come in thereat.  This peculiar state is very clearly illustrated by the Rev. R. Edleston, in the ease of the pilgrim seeking the Immortal Fountain, who, when she came to the Gate of Obedience, “felt an oppressive pain upon her forehead,” and her sight became dim; and, when the angels saw this (he says), “they sighed, and tears of pity rolled down their cheeks; so she was compelled to withdraw to the outside of the gate.  We know by this (said the first angel), that you cannot reach the fountain; for none can breathe the air of our land but those who in spirit and life are like us.”  Now, this gate is closed against no comer; for it is the will of our great Master that all should enter:  but, when any one retires with pain [or repugnance], we perceive that he is [as yet] unfit to pass through our land.”  Hence it is that a gate is a test of fitness for entering into a new state: for, if any one feels an internal repugnance to its quality or character, there will be an unwillingness to make such public avowal and testification.  It is probably for a similar reason that many foreigners never become naturalized in this country; because, though willing to avail themselves of the advantages of its government and laws, they are internally attached to the land of their birth.  And because this is so, and because it is seen and admitted by all nations and people to be orderly and right, every government, society, or constituted organic body, has required such a test of fitness, of faith, or of obedience, before admission.  Thus the requirement of a profession of faith being made at the door of the Church, and the confirmation thereof by the sign and seal of baptismal waters and benediction, is neither arbitrary nor unusual, but most orderly and proper; and it is difficult to conceive of a valid objection to it. 

The fallacy of the reason sometimes alleged, of having been baptized, when it means no more than having been duly initiated into the acknowledgment of a tri-personal God, and the doctrine of faith alone, simply because the form of inauguration was the same as (or similar to), that used in professing a belief in the fundamental doctrines of the New Church, is equivalent to saying that,—because the marriage service had been used in solemnizing nuptials, afterwards, when the wife died, or when, for the cause of adultery, the husband put her away, and united himself instead to a virgin daughter of Jerusalem—no marriage service was required on the occasion, the former one being all sufficient or that the new obligations would flow into the former ceremony, and fill it.  Thus, to say that he has already been baptized, is just as pertinent as to say be has already been married!

Still, that there is virtue in that original act of baptism cannot be doubted.  It is not only a means of conjunction with, that sect or society in the religious world on earth which is in the same faith as was professed in uniting with it; but, as thought brings presence, so also it is a sign which is perceived in the spiritual world, and brings the person thus initiated into conjunction there also with those who are of a similar faith, or into association with such spirits as make one with their life and faith” (T.C.R. 677).  But the only reason why baptism represents regeneration, is because it acknowledges the Lord and His commandments, or laws of life, by which alone regeneration can be effected; and unless regeneration can as well be effected by an idolatrous object of worship, and by faith alone, as by the true God as our Saviour and Redeemer, it must be obvious that baptism into such a faith is not the means for accomplishing it.  Nay, it is not only inefficient to this end, but it must be actually injurious in its influence on a genuine receiver of the New Church doctrines, because it becomes to him a door of influx for the infestation of falses. 

A striking, though it may be somewhat extreme view of this is given by Mr. De Charms in his own experience, he having been baptized into the faith of a tri-personal God; so that long after his reception of the Doctrines of the New Jerusalem, the spirits in the world of spirits, who had then been associated with him, continued to flow into his thought, and excite in him the ideas of that faith.  “Such (he says), were the horrifying injections of those spirits into our mind, when we attempted to address our prayers to the Lord, as the only God, that we would oftentimes spring up involuntarily and spasmodically from our knees, in veriest terror of them!  In short such were the infestations of our new faith by those spirits, such their temptations of us, by the suggestion of harrowing doubts respecting its heavenly verities, that we were thrice driven to the utmost verge of despair.”  And this went on accumulating, he says, until he was baptized into the faith of the New Church; when, he continues, “the sign of our old baptism seemed to be wiped from our spirits, or to be veiled from the view of other spirits, by the super-induction of the new sign: for, ever since that time, we have never known what it is to feel the slightest doubt in regard to any truth of the New Church, much less its fundamental one, nor have we suffered any of our previous infestations from Old-Church spirits.”  That experience, he says, and the profound study of the subject for a period of thirty years, “brought us to our present very clear convictions and most decided advocacy of the necessity of a new and distinctive baptism of the New Jerusalem.”  (Ext. Church, p. 72).  Indeed, instead of the baptism into a false faith and idolatrous worship, admitting any one within the walls of the New Jerusalem, it only removes him so much further from them; and it is really wonderful that any professed receiver of the doctrines of the New Church should not see this, or that he should think the mere formula of baptism was the all of baptism.  Why, those simple, naturally-minded men, who were baptized by John in the Jordan, with all the proper forms of baptism, before the Lord in his Humanity was made known to them, were again baptized by Paul, when they received this faith, into the name of the Lord Jesus; and then the Holy Spirit was given to them: for this can only be received by those who acknowledge Him in His glorified Humanity (Acts 29: 5).  To recognize a baptism into the faith of the Old Church as valid, is virtually to admit the New Church to be a sect and constituent part thereof, instead of being a New and distinct dispensation, in which all things are to be made new; i.e., new doctrines and new rituals, new wine and new bottles, a new fig-tree and new organic body.  What then have we to do with the old?  Or, what right have we to commingle it with the new?  Is it our Church that we may do as we please with it?  Is the Eucharist our feast, that we may invite whom we choose?  Is it not the Lord’s Church and the Lord’s Table?  and what have we to do but to obey His teachings?  Or have we any right to set aside His divine order, or to invite any one who has not thus acknowledged Him?  If baptism is the outer door, and that table is the inner door, of His Church, and the officiating priest (who is His ministering servant), there and then invites in the name of the Lord, those who are to approach it, have we any right to invite anyone in any other way, than by that baptismal door where the Lord is first acknowledged and professed?  Or by what authority can any one assume to set aside a condition which the Lord himself has enjoined?  Has a Minister of the Church any such right?  Or have any number of men the ability to bestow it?  It was not singular, fifty years ago, when the New Church was just coming into form and visibility in the world, that, in its then transition state, there should for a while have been some admixture of the old with the new.  But is this state always to continue?  or has not the New Church assumed a separate and distinct organization long enough yet, to see and admit that neither Ordination, Baptism, or the Eucharist, in the Old Church, are, or can be, any constituent parts of the New.

But do you say, “Yes, we see and admit this all as true and proper for us, but not for others; and, if there are any who do not see it as we do, we have no right to require it of them?”  But, in saying this, what do you do, but virtually invite those, who are so disposed, to climb over the wall? 

The Minister, who invites to the Supper, has no prerogatives beyond what the Lord has taught and commanded him.  It is neither our table nor our feast, for us to do as we please; but it is the Lord’s Church and the Lord’s Table, and He has Himself made the requirements; and we have no more the privilege to set them aside, than we have to dispense with the Decalogue, or to grant indulgences.

A novitiate receiver may not know this; but we know it, or ought to know it, and we should so instruct him. The walls of the church are for its protection and defense, the doors for admission; and so long as Baptism is that door, and the essential of baptism is the acknowledgment of the Lord in His Divine Humanity, and the signing and sealing of that testimony is by water and the spirit, we have only to obey; and those who cannot do this, or are unwilling to enter this outer door, ought not to enter the inner, but should wait till they can; and if they are in earnest, and in the real affection for truth they will not have to wait long.  But if any yet refuse to come in this Divinely appointed way, and still complain of being excluded from the benefits of this sacrament, they must be most unreasonable and inconsistent indeed; because this table is open to them in every sect of the Old Church, into the faith of which they have been baptized; and if they are so well satisfied with that baptism, how can they be otherwise than equally well satisfied with that communion?  It may be, indeed, that you can cite me cases, in which Ministers of the New Church will receive, or even invite others to come, who have never been thus baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, but who, instead of coming in by Him alone as the door, have acknowledged a tri-personal God.

But would you cite such cases?  Especially are you willing to sanction it in our Association?  It may be said that Swedenborg received the sacrament of the Supper before his death, without having been baptized into the faith of the New Church.  But, at that time there was no organized New Church on earth, or any New Church Minister; consequently no possibility of being thus baptized.  Nor did Swedenborg desire thus to receive the Supper.  He said “the offer was well meant; but that being a member of the other world he did not need it.”  Still he consented to take it, but arranged the form and manner himself, the attending minister only consecrating the elements; and this “to show the connection between the Church in heaven and the Church on earth.”  But you will also remember that as Swedenborg had not been baptized by a minister of the New Church, so neither did he receive the Holy Supper at the hands of one, because the time had not yet come. Thus this case is not at all in illustration.  Nor can any authority be adduced for receiving the Holy Supper, in the New Jerusalem, until the candidate has entered her sacred portals as the Lord has taught and required. And they shall be blessed who thus come, because they do His commandments; and then they shall have a right to the tree of life in the midst of the city, and to eat thereof, and live forever, because they thus “enter in through the gates.”  May the Lord in His mercy help you to see this subject in its true light and aid you by his wisdom, to do His will!  Amen.