Meantime the Lord prepared Peter to go to the Gentiles. In vision he beheld a great net lowered down from heaven, filled with all manner of beasts, and a voice cried unto him, "Rise, Peter, kill, and eat." But Peter said, "Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean," "What God hath cleansed, that call thou not common," said the voice.[A] This was done thrice, and before he had wholly concluded what the vision could mean, the messengers from Cornelius were at the gate--and the Spirit told him to go with them, for the Lord had sent them. [Footnote A: Acts x:9-17.] That Peter understood the import of this vision to be that the Gospel was for all mankind, for all races and nations, is evident from the fact that when on the following day he went with the messengers to the house of Cornelius, he said to him: "Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. Therefore come I unto you without gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for."[A] [Footnote A: Acts x:28.] Cornelius related to him his vision and expressed himself as ready to receive the commandments of God. Then Peter preached to him Christ and him crucified, and that whosoever believed on him should have remission of sins. And "while Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. The answer Peter gave was, "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord."[A] [Footnote A: Acts x:44-48.] Afterwards, when they of the circumcision complained of Peter for going to them who were uncircumcised, he related the whole matter to them, and testified that as he began to speak to Cornelius and his kindred, "the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. * * * Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?"[A] When they heard this they held their peace, and the saying went abroad that God had also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. [Footnote A: Acts xi:15-17.] The object for deviating from the order in which the principles and ordinances of the Gospel follow each other is obvious--it was that the Jews might have a witness from God that the Gospel was for the Gentiles as well as for their own nation. But according to the scriptures, and, I may say, according to the nature and relationship of these several principles and ordinances of the Gospel to each other, the reception of the Holy Ghost comes after faith, repentance, and baptism.