REPENTANCE.
"Repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin." (Ezek. xviii. 30). "Let the wicked forsake his way" (Isa. lv. 7). "Repent * * * every one of you" (Acts ii. 38). "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish" (Luke xiii. 3).
We understand that repentance does not consist in mourning over sins committed, and then repeating the same sin or one equally heinous, but that Ezekiel meant for the people to cease from doing wrong, to quit their evil practices, and walk in the path of rectitude, virtue and true holiness. "For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of; but the sorrow of the world worketh death." (II. Cor. vii. 10). We believe that the "sorrow of the world" here alluded to, is the too-prevalent practice of crying, groaning and moaning over our wrong-doings, and then continuing the same practices.
The third step for man to take in this life to secure salvation in the eternal world, is to be
BAPTIZED.
"He that believeth" (that is, he that hath faith) "and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark xvi. 16), was the emphatic assertion of our Savior. Again, we find that man came under condemnation by refusing obedience to this commandment:
"But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him" (Luke vii. 30). So the world of today will, in the end, find themselves under condemnation for refusing to obey this principle of the gospel.
"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." (John iii. 5).
Paul, writing to the Hebrews, says: "Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrines of Christ, let us go on unto perfection: not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands." (Heb. vi. 1-2). Here are four principles all classed together, all equally important, all equally necessary, and all required at our hands by those fixed and eternal laws of truth and justice, by which the worlds are governed, and by which we may return back into the presence of God, and dwell with the just and true and the pure of all ages.
The fourth step necessary for man to take while in this state of probation, is to receive