Admission to Full Communion

As the Lord’s Supper represents the great

object of saving faith, it is impossible for one

who has no faith to partake of it in a due or

acceptable manner. This is a matter for

your own inquiry. Christ’s ministers and

other church-officers cannot read the heart.

They must be governed by evidences from

18 THE YOUNG COMMlNICAI^r.

your declarations and conduct. They may judge of your knowledge and life, and may credit the amount of your inward experience, but they cannot pronounce you to be regenerate; ana by admitting you to sealing ordinances, they do not so pronounce. Their warrant for so admitting you, is not the certainty of your conversion, which they cannot know, but only your credible profession of faith in Christ. Of this credibility they must judge from your words and actions. And you should be solemnly warned against the disastrous error, ot taking your admission to the communion as any part of the evidence that you are really a child of God. That evidence is to be derived from a careful comparison of heart and life with the marks of grace laid down in the Scriptures.