Note 263 — Chapter X

Burnet's Mem. of Duke of Hamilton, p. 239. I am not quite satisfied as to this, which later writers seem to have taken from Burnet. It may well be supposed that the ambiguity of the covenant was not very palpable; since the Scots presbyterians, a people not easily cozened, were content with its expression. According to fair and honest rules of interpretation, it certainly bound the subscribers to the establishment of a church-government conformed to that of Scotland; namely, the presbyterian, exclusive of all mixture with any other. But Selden, and the other friends of moderate episcopacy who took the covenant, justified it, I suppose, to their consciences, by the pretext that, in renouncing the jurisdiction of bishops, they meant the unlimited jurisdiction without concurrence of any presbyters. It was not, however, an action on which they could reflect with pleasure. Baxter says that Gataker, and some others of the assembly, would not subscribe the covenant, but on the understanding that they did not renounce primitive episcopacy by it. Life of Baxter, p. 48. These controversial subtleties elude the ordinary reader of history.