When I tell you that thousands received the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, even before the Holy Spirit was given, and were clean through the words spoken unto them, many are ready to cry out, "These are hard and strange sayings--who can hear them?" Yet, strange as it may seem, these facts have been upon record near _nineteen hundred_ years. Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." In the record of St. Luke, chapter 24, the condition of the new covenant, to which remission of sins is promised, is expressed by the term _repentance_: "Thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." The word repentance, when used in the law of Christ, is always equivalent to the use which the ancient martyrs made of it, viz: "Amend your lives." We have it beautifully expressed in these words: "If the wicked turn from all the sins which he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die." Paul summed up the whole matter of his preaching in the sentence, "Repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." In some of the best Latin translations this passage in Acts 20th is rendered, "_Conversion to God_;" also in Hebrews, 6th chapter, we read, "And _conversion_ from dead works." Such is more clear and natural; but if we should read, according to modern theology, _sorrow_ towards God, and _sorrow_ from dead works, it would sound very unnatural, and almost ridiculous. This is a grand argument in favor of the reading of the _Geneva text_, which reads, "_Amend your lives_ and _turn_, that your sins may be blotted out." But if heaven may be gained at an easier and cheaper rate, how is it that we are so frequently and so plainly assured that without actual newness of life, holiness and sanctification unto obedience, there is no hope, no possibility of salvation? John the Baptist, preaching repentance, said: "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire." It is not the leaves, simply, of a profession, nor the blossoms of good purposes and intentions, but the fruit, _the fruit only_, that will save us from the fire. "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire."