One extract more, taken from the “Biblical Theology” of the venerable Dr. Knapp, of Halle, edited by Dr. Guericke, may suffice:  “The power and influence of these several religious ordinances or sacraments, is not physical and mechanical, and also not magical, or operating by 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.

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.

II.  That man “made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,” in and by holy Baptism, is renewed from time to time in holy Communion.

III.  That a “death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness” is given to every adult, and every infant, in and by the outward visible sign or form in Baptism, “water, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”