=3. Baptism Necessary.=--"That Gospel baptism is necessary to salvation, is abundantly evidenced in the sacred writings. Christ, the highest authority known to man, asserted this most emphatically when He said to Nicodemus: 'Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God' (John iii, 5). So important did the Savior consider baptism, that when He went to John to be baptized, and John forbade Him, He replied to him: 'Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness' (Matt. iii, 13-15). In this he taught John the doctrine that a fulness of righteousness, or salvation, could not be received without it. The prophet Nephi, who lived nearly six hundred years before the birth of our Savior, clearly understood the necessity of baptism. Said he: 'And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfil all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water?' (II Nephi xxxi, 5). The prophet Mormon, who lived nearly one thousand years after Nephi, also taught the necessity of following the example of our Savior in being baptized, first by water (Mormon vii, 10)."--_Compendium_, p. 32. See also: Doc. and Cov. v, 16; lxviii, 8; lxxvi, 51; cxii, 29; cxxviii, 12; Book of Mormon: II Nephi xxxi, 11, 17; Alma v, 62; ix, 27; III Nephi xviii, 5; xxviii, 18; Mormon ix, 29; Moroni vi, 1-4; viii, 4-22. LECTURE VII. BAPTISM.--Continued. =Article 4.=--We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are:--... (3) Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; ... MODE OF BAPTISM.