For eliminating unworthy members, the means provided in the Sinai ordinances were as abundant as those now enjoyed by the church, and would seem to have been as well adapted to the effectual securing of the end proposed. They come under three heads. (1.) Certain offenses were visited with the penalty of death or of utter separation from the communion of Israel. (Ex. xxxi, 14; Num. ix, 13, etc.) (2.) The expenses incident to a faithful performance of the duties required of members of the church of Israel were large and continual. Firstfruits, firstlings, and tithes, trespass offerings, sin offerings, freewill offerings, and other oblations, made up an aggregate which can not have fallen short of one-fifth of all the income of Israel, and probably went far beyond that amount. The law provided none but moral means for enforcing these requirements; and numerous facts in the history of Israel show that by many they were entirely neglected. (Neh. xiii, 10-13; Mal. iii, 8-10.) Those who thus withheld what belonged to the Lord were self-excluded from the fellowship of the covenant society, and were “cut off from the congregation (_ekklēsia_ from _the church_) of the Lord.” (3.) The irksome and humiliating nature of the regulations concerning uncleanness and purifying were very efficient means of separating between the believing and the profane. As we shall presently see, occasions of uncleanness were of almost daily occurrence, in every house. These required a conscientious watchfulness and assiduity, in guarding against defilement, and in using the appointed rites of purifying, which often involved the interruption and expense of journeys to the sanctuary and offerings there. The communion of the church of Israel thus consisted of those only, with their families, who added to the obligations of a public profession of faith, a fidelity to all the requirements of the law, its moral precepts, its ritual observances, its tithes and offerings, its rites of purifying and its annual feasts. In a word, the account given of Zacharias and Elizabeth describes the character required, in order to fellowship in the church of Israel: “Righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.”—Luke i, 6. Such, and such only, were the _clean_, to whom the privileges of Israel’s communion belonged. To them they were certified by the seal of baptism. SECTION XII.—_Circumcision and Baptism._