been
regenerated, and has consecrated himself to the service of God; but
multitudes receive the sacrament who are unregenerate, and who
therefore cannot be justified or pardoned, even by the sincere
reception of the sacraments. Hence as the reception of the sacraments
is no certain proof of pardon, it cannot be the immediate condition of
it.

3. The sacraments are not immediate conditions of justification or
pardon, because _previous faith_ is required in the recipients of each
of them. "He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved," [Note 20]
says the great Redeemer; "but he that believeth not shall be damned."
But if some may be baptised who are destitute of faith, then the
existence of faith is not necessarily involved in baptism. And as
baptism without faith does not rescue the soul from damnation, it
evidently cannot be the _immediate_ or certain condition of pardon; for
if the immediate condition of a blessing is performed, that blessing
must be conferred. And since previous faith is required in baptism, and
none but the baptised are admitted to the Lord's Supper, it is evident
that faith is also required of communicants.

4. That they are not _immediate_ conditions of pardon, is evident,
because the same truths which the sacraments inculcate, do not when
taught orally or in God's word, invariably or necessarily secure the
pardon or justification of all attentive hearers. The result of the
proper use of the truth preached or read, is invariably the spiritual
advancement of the sinner, whatever the stage of his progress may be.
And such appears to be the operation of the sacraments. As it is absurd
to affirm that each sermon preached, will convert or affect the pardon
of every sinner who attentively hears it; so it were equally gratuitous
to affirm the same of the sacraments. If the sinner had been on the
verge of regeneration and faith _before_ he heard the sermon in
question, and the hearing of that discourse completed the change, the
result might be affirmed of the last sermon which preceded his faith,
but not of its predecessors; and so also of the sacraments as means of
grace. Every sermon attentively heard will benefit all who thus hear it.
But whether it will produce conviction, or penitence, or faith, or a
sense of pardoned sin, depends on the recipient's previous stage of
progress in the divine life.

5. If the sacraments were possessed of a sin-forgiving power, in such a
sense, as to be the _imm