hus challenged, "Ye are departed
out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have
corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts." An apostate
priesthood taught the people to swear at once by the Lord, and by
Malcham--the abomination of the Sidonians--a false god. To cut off
these, and the victims of their deceit, the Lord stretched out his hand.
And to mark the care with which he watched over the faithful
dispensation of his own ordinances, and observed every deviation from
them, as designed to present the privileges and duties of his covenant,
were also uttered his words, "Cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his
flock a male, and voweth and sacrificeth to the Lord a corrupt thing:
for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful
among the heathen."[718]

A priesthood was recognised when God entered into covenant with Noah,
and with Abraham; and throughout all time was a priesthood to be
approved as a covenant sign. Had it not been for the Everlasting
Covenant, the rite of sacrifice had not been instituted, and a
priesthood had not been. But that the ratification of that covenant by
the glorious Surety might first be prefigured, and next had in
commemoration, was given this sign. To intimate the ratification of
God's covenant with his people, as at Horeb, the blood of sacrifice by
the priesthood was sometimes sprinkled; and, consequently, the
priesthood, under the law, kept up the remembrance of the covenant, and
pointed forward to its final confirmation. The later priesthood, the
people of God under the gospel, in offerings of praise, record that one
sacrifice by which it was rendered sure, and hence they, as well as all
else of the holy priesthood, to its special duties of vowing and
swearing, from their peculiar character, became engaged.

Although of those who ministered at the altar under a former
dispensation, it is said by an apostle, "those priests were made without
the swearing of an oath,"[719] we are not to suppose them as not indeed
by covenant set apart to the duties of the Levitical priesthood; nor are
we to suppose that the people of God, as a holy priesthood in general,
whom those priests represented, do not sustain their character in virtue
of Covenant arrangements. Those priests, on believing, were entitled to
the blessings promised and secured by the oath of God to Abraham's seed.
And so were the rest of his Covenant people. Moreover, the Lord swar