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 _immediate_ conditions of pardon or justification,
then the sinner would be dependent for pardon on the sacraments, and on
the clergyman who administers them, and not immediately on the Spirit
of God. But this would virtually be one of the most dangerous features
of Puseyism and Romanism, by which the minister is thrust in between