The Reformed-confessional pastoral practice of providing pre-communion exhortation that warns the unworthy from approaching the Lord's Table while inviting and encouraging the worthy. The practice rests substantively on 1 Corinthians 11:27-29: Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. The fencing-of-the-table exhortation typically addresses three categories: (1) warning the unconverted — those who have not made profession of faith in Christ are warned that the Table is not for them and that to partake would be to eat damnation; (2) warning the unrepentant believer — believers who are presently in unrepented grave sin (sexual immorality, drunkenness, divisiveness, lying, theft, etc.) are warned to repent before partaking lest they eat damnation; (3) inviting the worthy believer — converted, repentant, examining believers are warmly invited to the Table to commune with Christ. The Scottish-Presbyterian tradition developed the fencing-of-the-table into a substantive pastoral institution; the elders distributed metal communion tokens to examined-and-approved communicants in advance of the communion seasons; the minister's pre-communion exhortation explicitly named the categories warned away and the categories invited. The Continental-Reformed tradition (Heidelberg Q. 81-82; Belgic XXXV) holds substantively the same pastoral practice in different liturgical forms. The patriarchal-Reformed reader recovers the substantive fencing-of-the-table as one of the great pastoral safeguards of the Lord's Table against both presumptive partaking (which damages the partaker) and laxity in church discipline (which damages the witness of the visible church).