scarcely coin a term for a concept that does not exist. The historian’s task is thus at this point one akin to that of an archaeologist: to find out how and why the term emerged at this point, and the answer, to put it in its simplest terms, is twofold: the language of covenant was increasingly prominent in Reformed theology, never more so than in the middle decades of the seventeenth century when it was used not simply in terms of theology but also of politics; and from the Reformation onward certain