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Christ, God himself has eternally proclaimed, “I have set my King upon my Holy Hill of Zion.” Second. Consider the constitution of this church with respect to its membership. In this particular the word of God is clear, express and pointed. It teaches us that the members of Christ’s visible church ought individually to possess a competent measure of the knowledge of divine truth, make a suitable profession of faith, and lead a conversation becoming the gospel. This knowledge which they should possess, this profession which they should make and this conversation which they should thus exemplify ought to be something more than a mere theoretical knowledge, a mere formal profession or a conversation merely exempt from the grosser vices of openly wicked men, for it is evident a person may have all these things even in a marked degree and yet be as really void of any true, vital godli- ness as the veriest heathen. Such a person may be able to talk intelligently enough about the doctrines of the gospel; he may profess loudly enough and may even give his assent to all the usual formulas of almost any Christian church, and he may actually go beyond this, and possess what is called an un- blemished moral character among his fellow men, and yet after all be totally destitute of saving faith or any of those marks which prove him to be a child of God. The Scriptures therefore teach us to look beneath and beyond the mere surface of hu~ mill] lift or ordinary moral character in forming an estimate of the genuine membership of the visible

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