All that we have said (Part. I.,
Art. 8) on the influences exerted by the Holy Spirit, through the word,
(or divine doctrine,) and in the use of the divine doctrines on the
hearts of men, is also applicable to this subject. For he operates in
a similar manner in these religious ordinances, through the divine
doctrines which are represented by them to the senses, and appropriated
by ourselves. Against the abuse of such divinely appointed religious
ordinances, when their mere external performance is regarded as
sufficient, (as in the case of the sacrifices,) even Moses and all the
prophets, protest in the most emphatic manner." [Note 23]
From all those considerations it is most evident, that although _baptism
and the Lord's Supper are important, and influential, and divinely
appointed ordinances; neither of them can be the immediate condition of
pardon or justification, because neither necessarily involves that state
of moral qualification, which, the Scriptures require for pardon_,
namely, genuine conversion or regeneration, evinced by its immediate and
invariable result, a _living faith_.
Note 1. For the information of such of our readers as prefer a
skeleton of the Puseyite system of the sacraments, rather than wade
through volumes of Semi-romish discussion, we annex its features:---
I. That man is "made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an
inheritor of the kingdom of heaven," in and by holy Baptism.
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