God's covenant with his people is the covenant of a priesthood. And to secure the dispensation of the means of grace, that was given. The ministry of reconciliation and the Church at large are co-ordinate. Where the one is promised, the other also will be bestowed in due time. Where the ministers of the word are, there, to a greater or less extent, will be a Church. And a Church will seek to itself the ministering servants of Christ. Where the ordinances of religion are properly dispensed, there is a Church; and there an appointed instrumentality, in greater or less measure, presents the mind of Christ. When his servants dispense the ordinances of his grace, God speaks to his people. And as a people in covenant with Him, to his words they are called to assent. His servants are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech by them, they beseech sinners to be reconciled unto him. Like the Church itself in the world, the continuance of the ambassadors of Christ shows that God is waiting to be gracious. They who despise their messages declare themselves his enemies. Like the recal of an envoy, which betokens approaching hostilities, the removal of the servants of Christ from among a people, declares that the Lord is about to deal with them as his foes. When Churches become corrupt, this is the case. When the righteous are removed from among them, and the ecclesiastical constitution is in opposition to his will, the whole body is out of Covenant, and what was the temple of God becomes the receptacle of idols. When the Lord was angry with his professed people, he suffered a lying spirit to enter the mouth of their prophets. And to the people as a whole, in token of their rejection, he said, "Thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children."[713] But notwithstanding the defections of many such, the Lord will raise him up a faithful priesthood. It is expressed in the anticipation, "The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee;"[714] and pledged in the promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Hence the encouragement, "I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding;"[715] and the duties defined, "The priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts."[716]