Now, every communicant either possesses this faith, or he does not.

If he does, he is justified or pardoned before he communes; if he is destitute of this faith, his communing cannot justify or pardon him; for man is justified by faith alone.

Yet are there thousands of church members who afford no satisfactory evidence of regeneration, or of that faith which works by love, and purifies the heart, and overcomes the world; who, because they approach the sacramental table with seriousness and sincerity, and perhaps with some sorrow for their sins, believe that they obtain pardon for their transgressions, and yet still continue in their unregenerate state.

It cannot be said that the symbolical books clearly teach the above error, but they are not sufficiently guarded, and are understood by many as inculcating the doctrine, that a sincere and devout participation of the Lord's Supper secures the pardon of sin, even where satisfactory evidences of regeneration are wanting, the persons referred to mistaking a mere historical belief for a living faith.

Hence, as the _Scripture nowhere connects the forgiveness of sins with the duty of sacramental communion_, any more than with the performance of any other prominent christian duty, it is not proper that we should do so.