414. Our country is our neighbor more than our community is, because our country consists of many communities. Love for our country is therefore broader and higher. Loving our country is also loving the well-being of the general public.

Our country is our neighbor because it is like a parent. We were born in it. It has nourished us and continues to nourish us. It has kept us safe from harm and continues to do so.

We are to do good to our country with love according to what it needs. Some of its needs are earthly and some are spiritual. Its earthly needs center on its civic life and order. Its spiritual needs center on its spiritual life and order.

We are to love our country not merely as much as we love ourselves; we are to love it more. There is a law written on the human heart that gives rise to the statement all just people say when they are in imminent danger of dying because of an enemy or some other cause. They say that it is a noble thing to die for their country. They say that it is a glorious thing for soldiers to shed their blood for their country. They say this because that is how much one ought to love one's country.

It is important to know that if people love their country and benefit it because they wish it well, they love the Lord's kingdom after death. The Lord's kingdom is their country at that point. And those who love the Lord's kingdom love the Lord, since the Lord is everything to all his kingdom.

674. Baptism Was Instituted as a Replacement for Circumcision Because Circumcision of the Foreskin Symbolized Circumcision of the Heart; the Intent Was to Create an Internal Church to Replace the External Church, Which as a Whole and in Every Detail Was an Allegory of That Internal Church

It is well known throughout Christianity that we have an inner self and an outer self, that our outer self is the same as our earthly self, and that our inner self is the same as our spiritual self, because it contains our spirit. It is also known that because the church consists of human beings, there is such a thing as a church that is internal in nature and such a thing as a church that is external in nature.

If we conduct research on the succession of churches over time from ancient times to our own, we see that the former churches were external in nature. Their worship consisted of external actions that symbolized the internal practices taught by the Christian church, whose foundation the Lord laid when he was in the world, and which he is now building for the first time.

Circumcision was the main practice that differentiated the Israelite church from the other churches in the Middle East (and differentiated it later on from the Christian church as well).

Since, as mentioned before [], all the rituals of the Israelite church (which were external in nature) prefigured the practices of the Christian church (which are internal in nature), the primary sign that someone belonged to that church was inwardly similar to the primary sign that someone is Christian. Circumcision represented rejecting the cravings of the flesh, and therefore being purified from evils. Baptism means the same thing.

Clearly then, there are two reasons why baptism was commanded as a replacement for circumcision: (1) to differentiate the Christian church from the Jewish church; and (2) to make it more easily recognizable that the Christian church is internal in nature, which is something the functions of baptism (soon to be covered here [677-687]) make clear.