Verse 4 Baptism of repentance; that is, baptism as a public pledge and profession of repentance. There is a peculiar appropriateness in the application of water as a symbol of inward purification; but the real value of the rite consists in its being the form by which the convert, in a public and solemn manner, calls upon his fellow-men to witness that he abandons his sins and returns to God. Baptism has no efficacy in itself. It is simply the public profession of a principle by a symbolical act, instead of by words.