The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut

by M. Louise Greene

THE SAYBROOK PLATFORM AND THE TOLERATION ACT

They keep the word of promise to our ear and break it to our
hope.—Macbeth, Act V, Sc. viii.

The Connecticut General Court incorporated in the act establishing the
Saybrook Platform the proviso—

that nothing herein shall be intended or construed to hinder or prevent any Society or Church that is or shall he allowed by the laws of this government, who soberly differ or dissent from the United Churches hereby established from exercising worship and discipline in their own way, according to their conscience.

Here then was the measure of such religious toleration as could be expected. It appears a liberal measure. It was liberal in that day and generation, when men's minds were so firmly possessed by the belief that civil order was closely dependent upon religious uniformity. The exact purport of the proviso, however, can best be gauged by considering it in connection with a legislative act that immediately preceded it, and by studying the conditions which prompted or enforced this earlier legislation, known as the Toleration Act of 1708.[a]

As conditions were at its passage, the proviso applied only to certain Congregational churches that, preferring the polity of the Cambridge Platform, were determined to adhere to it. In earlier years, these churches, with their exacting test of regenerative experience, had constituted the majority. In later years, the Half-Way Covenant practice and Stoddardeanism had shifted the relative position of church parties. Now, the proviso represented that liberal-minded party within the church who would extend tolerance to the minority who still clung to the outgrown convictions and principles of an earlier age. This tolerance was extended from a two-fold motive: for the reason just assigned, and because the government hoped, by permitting a liberal interpretation of the Saybrook Articles, to win over these tolerated Congregational churches. It trusted that the anticipated benefits, proceeding from the new order of church government, would further convince them of the superior advantages derivable from the Presbyterian or more authoritative rendering of the Saybrook instrument, and that through such a policy, the ready acceptance of the Saybrook Platform by all the churches in the colony would be secured. Furthermore, it would not do for the colony to make an important law, following the great English precedent of 1689 which had granted toleration to dissenters, and then, within six months, frame a constitution for its Established Church, so rigid that no room could be found in the colony for any fundamental differences in faith or practice. Consequently, the proviso was made to include both tolerated Congregationalists and any dissenters who might in the future be permitted to organize their own churches, or, in the words of the Court, "any Society or Church that is or shall be allowed by the laws of this government." Thus the proviso was practically forced into the October legislation of the General Court by the passing of the Toleration Act at its spring session, notwithstanding the fact that its inclusion was in accord with the sentiment of the liberal party.

Toleration Act and proviso notwithstanding, no rival church was desired at this time in Connecticut. No rival creed was recognized. True, there were a few handfuls of dissenters scattered through the colony, but Congregationalism, with a strong tincture of Presbyterianism, was almost the unanimous choice of the people. It was largely outside pressure that had forced the passage of the Toleration Act, even if it accounts for itself as a loyal following of the English precedent of 1689. Although it had always been understood that the colonies should make no laws repugnant to the organic or to the common law of England, Connecticut was determined to protect as much as possible her own approved church, to keep it free from the contamination not only of infidels and heretics, but also from Church-of-England dissenters and from all others. Accordingly she placed side by side upon her statute book a Toleration Act with a proviso in favor of her Established Church, and a Church platform with a proviso for "sober dissenters" therefrom.

The circumstances which led up to and enforced the passage of the Toleration Act were many and varied. The motives were complex. Considerations religious, political, social, and economic entered into the problem which met the Connecticut legislators when they found their colony falling into disfavor with the King. This problem, resolved into its simplest terms, consisted in securing continued exemption from external interference. If Connecticut could retain the King's approval, she could prevent the intrigues of her enemies at the English court and could control the situation in the colony, whatever its aspects, secular or religious. And with reference to the latter, she would still be able to exalt her Establishment and to keep dissenters, however they might increase in kinds or numbers, in a properly subordinated position.

In order to obtain a grasp of the situation within the colony at the time when its government concluded that the passing of the Toleration Act would be politic, it is necessary to examine the status of the dissenters there. Of these there were four classes, the Quakers or Society of Friends, the Episcopalians, the Baptists, and the Rogerines. Of these, the Quakers and the Episcopalians were the first to make the Connecticut government forcibly realize that, if she interfered with what they believed to be their rights, there would probably have to be a settlement with the home government. But as the efforts of these sects to interest the English government in their behalf run parallel with and mix themselves up with other complaints against Connecticut, it will make the history of the times clearer if the early story of the Baptists and Rogerines is first told.

The Baptists early appeared in New England, but it was not until 1665 that Massachusetts permitted their organization into churches, and not until 1700, only eight years before the Saybrook Platform, that Cotton Mather wrote of them, "We are willing to acknowledge for our brethren as many of them as are willing to be acknowledged." In her dislike of them, Massachusetts had the full sympathy of Connecticut. And it was with great dissatisfaction that the authorities of the latter colony saw these dissenters, early in the eighteenth century, crossing the Rhode Island boundary to settle within her territory. Accordingly, in 1704, the General Court of Connecticut refused them permission to incorporate in church estate. When in the following year, in spite of the legislature's refusal, they organized a church at Groton under Valentine Wightman, the Assembly proceeded to inflict the full penalties of the law. While the Baptists had cheerfully paid all secular taxes, they had made themselves liable to fines and imprisonments by their refusal, on the ground of conscience, to pay the ecclesiastical ones, and, as they continued to refuse, fines and imprisonment and even flogging became their portion. Governor Saltonstall, mild in his personal attitude toward the three other groups of dissenters, thoroughly disapproved of the Baptists, seeming to fear their growing influence in New England and their increasing importance in the mother country. He believed in a policy of restriction and oppression toward the mere handful of them that had settled within his jurisdiction.