enchantment (or charm.) Nor does the mere external rite exert any
influence. On the contrary, they stand in the most intimate connexion
with the doctrines themselves, which they represent, and never exert any
influence without them. Therefore they can by themselves exert no
influence in the case of a person who has no knowledge and lively
conviction of the doctrines which they represent. But the truths which
are thereby represented to the senses, and are to be appropriated to
ourselves, operate precisely in the same way, or the Holy Spirit works
through them on the hearts of men, in exactly the same way as these
truths are wont to act apart, (from the sacraments,) when they are
heard, read or meditated on by any person; only, that in the case of
the sacraments, these truths are not communicated by words, but in a
different way presented to the senses. 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_.