Christ commanded baptism, and we cannot understand any person who really desires to serve him neglecting to obey him in so simple a matter. Still, it lowers the reverence we have for God to believe that he would exclude any really repentant, believing person from heaven simply because he had not been baptized. The person might have been converted on his death-bed, or if he was among Baptists he might die between the time of his conversion and the time set for administering the rite. God is not unjust, and would not hold a man responsible in such circumstances. Do you suppose the thief who repented on the Cross was baptized? Yet Jesus promised him an entrance into Paradise. Baptism generally followed conversion in the time of the Apostles, as it does now generally in heathen lands.
