Now, that agrees exactly with the doctrine of Peter, and the doctrine of John the Baptist. They were all three servants of God, and they all taught the same doctrine, and those who heard and believed that doctrine possessed the self-same faith; so that so far as baptism is concerned, the ancient Saints did teach and practice the self-same doctrine--baptism for the remission of sins. I want to talk a little about this. One says, "Well, I have always been taught that baptism was a doctrine of Christ anciently, but I have been under the impression that it was not necessary to salvation." That may be, my friends, we have been taught a great many things, and good Christian people have believed a great many things that Christian people have rejected since. But that is no reason why we should change the Bible doctrine. The thing is right here. "Well," says one, "I thought we were not able of ourselves to do anything to help to save ourselves." This requires proper understanding. {128} If baptism brings the remission of sins, and baptism is not attended to by us, we cannot obtain the blessing. Certainly not. God gives us bread to eat, but he does not present it to us. A man sows seed in the ground and he sees to it and he harvests it and it is threshed and prepared and placed before us in the shape of flour, but we have no disposition to deny that it is the gift of God. If it were not for God's goodness we should have no bread. If it were not for the gift of God, we could not attend to the ordinance that brings remission of sins. We have not power, of ourselves, to bring within our reach a single saving principle belonging to the plan of eternal life. It is all God's free gift. It is all in consequence of his mercy, and his charity, and his goodness and love, and pleasure manifested to us that we have any privilege at all that will help to make us better or that will bring us into his church and kingdom and give us a right to say that we are really his children. The fact that he has laid down ordinances, through which a remission of sins is brought to us does not warrant us in saying that we do it of ourselves, and when people talk like this it is likely to deceive. Now, my friends, the Bible says, in the place I have quoted, that baptism is for the remission of sins. Do we believe this? If we do you know we must also come to the conclusion necessarily that we cannot have a remission of sins without it. If God has placed the ordinance of baptism in his church, as part of his divine system for a certain purpose, the object cannot be obtained without it. The means which God reveals for certain purposes must be used. We cannot say, and it would be unreasonable in us to say, that when God speaks from heaven in regard to any particular thing we can ignore his advice when we please and adopt something else that suits us. It is wrong, and it is this disposition that has led to the present deplorable state of things.