from God to the believer. Baptism, according to John Calvin, is a public confession before men. “Indeed,” he explained, “it is the mark by which we publicly profess that we wish to be reckoned God’s people, by which we testify that we agree in worshipping the same God, in one religion with all Christians; by which finally we openly affirm our faith.”4 The apostle Peter used the legal language of contractual agreements to refer to baptism when he called it “the pledge of a good conscience toward God”