There is much meaning in the silence of the sacred writers respecting the official proceedings and the personal career of the Twelve and the Seventy.  It thus becomes impossible for any one to make out a title to the ministry by tracing his ecclesiastical descent; for no contemporary records enable us to prove a connexion between the inspired founders of our religion, and those who were subsequently entrusted with the government of the Church.  At the critical point where, had it been deemed necessary, we might have had the light of inspiration, we are left to wander in total darkness.  We are thus shut up to the conclusion that the claims of those who profess to be heralds of the gospel are to be tested by some other criterion than their ecclesiastical lineage.  It is written—­“By their fruits ye shall know them.” [48:1] God alone can make a true minister; [48:2] and he who attempts to establish his right to feed the flock of Christ by appealing to his official genealogy miserably mistakes the source of the pastoral commission.  It would, indeed, avail nothing though a minister could prove his relationship to the Twelve or the Seventy by an unbroken line of ordinations, for some who at the time may have been able to deduce their descent from the apostles were amongst the most dangerous of the early heretics. [48:3] True religion is sustained, not by any human agency, but by that Eternal Spirit who quickens all the children of God, and who has preserved for them a pure gospel in the writings of the apostles and evangelists.  The perpetuity of the Church no more depends on the uninterrupted succession of its ministers than does the perpetuity of a nation depend on the continuance of the dynasty which may happen at a particular date to occupy the throne.  As plants possess powers of reproduction enabling them, when a part decays, to throw it off, and to supply its place by a new and vigorous vegetation, so it is with the Church—­the spiritual vine which the Lord has planted.  Its government may degenerate into a corrupt tyranny by which its most precious liberties may be invaded or destroyed, but the freemen of the Lord are not bound to submit to any such domination.  Were even all the ecclesiastical rulers to become traitors to the King of Zion, the Church would not therefore perish.  The living members of the body of Christ would be then required to repudiate the authority of overseers by whom they were betrayed, and to choose amongst themselves such faithful men as were found most competent to teach and to guide the spiritual community.  The Divine Statute-book clearly warrants the adoption of such an alternative.  “Beloved,” says the Apostle John, “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God. ....  We are of God, he that knoweth God heareth us, he that is not of God heareth not us.  Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” [49:1] “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive