NATIONAL COVENANT.—This Was a bond of union or agreement, drawn up at Edin burgh in 1638, by the leading Presbyterian ministers, and subscribed by vast numbers of persons of all ranks of life. It embodied the confession of faith of 1580 and 1581, subscribed by James VI. in his youth, and again recognized in 1590 and 1596; and was binding on all who signed it to spare nothing which might save their religion. The proximate cause of this extraordinary manifestation of feeling was the attempt of Charles I. to enforce Episcopacy- and the use of the service-book in Scotland. The subscribing of the national covenant began on the 28th of Feb., 1638, in the Greyfriars' church and church-yard, at Edinburgh. Numerous copies were also circulated through the country for signature—a circumstance which accounts for many copies being still extant. "In the library of the faculty of advocates at Edinburgh are preserved five parchment copies, with the original signatures of Rothes, Montrose, Loudon, and many others of the nobility, gentry, commissioners of counties and burghs, and ministers, though only one of these five copies is apparently connected with the first signing, and the other four, which are dated 1639, were subscribed after the ratification by the gen eral assembly."—Historical Sketch Illustrative of the Sational Confession of Faith (David
son, Edinburgh, 1849), to which we refer for a variety of details. The general assembly, which met at Glasgow, Nov. 21, 1638, ratified the national covenant and the confession of faith which it embraced, and deposed the whole of the hierarchy which had been established by Charles I. The national covenant was subsequently ratified by the 5th act of the second parliament of Charles I., held at Edinburgh June 11, 1640, and sub scribed by Charles II. at Spey, June 23, 16.50, and Scoon, Jan. 1, 1651. The document will be found in the volume which comprehends the Confession of Faith, in use by the church of Scotland. Those who subscribe the national covenant, promise to "continue in obedience of the doctrine and discipline of this kirk." They also give assent to various acts of parliament in the reign of James VI., which besides repudiating the jurisdiction of the pope, and all the ceremonial observances and errors of the Romish church, ordain "all sayers, wilful hearers, and concealers of the mass, the maintainers and- resettors of the priests, Jesuits, trafficking Papists, to be punished without any exception or restriction."