THE various conflicting creeds were and are formulated according to imperfect human opinions regarding the true interpretation of Scripture, and not based upon an understanding of the spiritual import of the Word. It shows the emptiness of these opinions, if I, having been sprinkled under Methodist usages and beliefs, afterwards become converted to another creed, and conclude I must now be dipped after the Baptist fashion.
It is quite evident that, in themselves, there is not, and never has been, any virtue whatever, in material rites or ceremonies. They are, at best, only symbols, pointing upward, to be laid aside as we gain the reality in understanding, which it is our privilege to do here and now, gradually, through demonstration of the Truth of Being, that man is spiritual, and not material.
To become a member of Christ's Church is to gain an understanding (1st John, 5:20.) that we are children of God, Spirit, thus destroying the belief that we are children of Adam, matter. These two opposite conditions are, as St. Paul informs us, constantly "warring" against each other. Therefore the demonstration or understanding, of Spirit and its realities, cannot be aided, but rather, hindered, by attaching any weight or importance to material ceremonies. Were it otherwise, the old Jewish economy, with its ritualism, its types and shadows, would not have had to give way under the dispensation of Love which was brought to light in human consciousness through the demonstrations of Jesus. He, our great master and way-shower said, "Ye shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with," referring, not to material emblems, but to the cup of the cross, which every disciple of Truth meets in the lower or materialistic thought, when striving to live according to the Mind of Christ. This cup brings the true baptism, or realization of the Love which is God. True, Jesus submitted to water baptism, but he said, "Suffer it to be so now," and afterwards he commissioned his disciples to baptize, not in, or with water, but "into the name (or understanding) of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," at the same time declaring the effects that must necessarily follow such a baptism of Divine understanding, viz. the healing of sin and sickness.
