It is not surprising that there began to be mutterings against such
restrictions. It shows the strength of character in the Puritan communities
of Massachusetts and New Haven that a large majority of the men submitted
as long as they did to conditions thoroughly undemocratic. As a political
measure, when the grumblings became so loud as to be no longer ignored,
what is called the half-way covenant was adopted, by means of which a
semi-membership in the churches could be secured, that gave the right of
suffrage, but permitted no action within the church itself.[3] Many
writers on this period fail to understand the significance of the half-way
covenant; for they attribute to that legislation the disintegrating results
that followed. They forget that these half-members were not admitted to any
part in church affairs; and they refuse to see that the methods employed by
the Puritans were, because of their exclusiveness, of necessity
demoralizing. In fact, the half-way covenant was a result of the
disintegration that had already taken place as the issue of an attempted
compromise between the institutional and the individualistic theories of
church government.

[Sidenote: Seventeenth-century Liberals.]

By arbitrary methods the Puritans succeeded in controlling church and state
until 1688, when the interference of the English authorities compelled them
to practise toleration and to widen the suffrage. The words of Sir Richard
Saltonstall to John Cotton and John Wilson show clearly that these methods
were not accepted by all, and even Saltonstall returned to England to
escape the restrictions he condemned. "It doth not a little grieve my
spirit to hear what sad things are daily reported of your tyranny and
persecutions in New England," he wrote, "as that you fine, whip, and
imprison men for their consciences. First you compel such to come into your