35. Theocracy Begins to Wither: The Half-Way Covenant

The Puritan theocracy faced not only the direct problem of the merchants and their worldly spirit, but also the withering of their dominion from within the very bosom of the church itself. First, the Puritans had to bear the cross of their own brethren in England, who had come increasingly under the influence of liberal ideas in the 1640s and were reproaching Massachusetts for its intolerance. Even the former firebrand and persecutor of Anne Hutchinson, Rev. Hugh Peter, having returned to England, now urged religious toleration in Massachusetts. Shortly before his death in 1649, Governor Winthrop received the sad and deeply puzzling news that his own son Stephen, fighting in Cromwell’s New Model Army, was actually advocating liberty of conscience. “I hope his heart is with the Lord,” said Winthrop wistfully.

But even within Massachusetts itself, theocratic rule was beginning to slacken. During the 1650s opinion grew rapidly in the New England church that the requirements for being chosen a member of the “elect” should be greatly loosened. The issue was aggravated by the fact that only church members could become freemen, and hence vote in Massachusetts Bay. Therefore, the growing pressure for a broader and more democratic franchise could only be satisfied by softening the requirements for church membership—in short by weakening Puritan tenets themselves.

The crisis was precipitated in the Hartford church in Connecticut where the practice of Rev. Samuel Stone in admitting church members was thought lax by many of the church elders. In 1657, the General Court of Massachusetts proposed a synod of all the New England colonies. Rhode Island, of course, would take no part, not being a Puritan colony. New Haven, most rigorously wedded to theocracy and opposed to any change, also refused to participate. From the other end of the spectrum, Connecticut accepted and its authorities sent four ministers to the synod; Massachusetts appointed fifteen. Over the bitter opposition of the conservative ministers, the synod adopted the “Half-Way Covenant,” which automatically allowed all those baptized in the church to become church members and to have their children baptized as well. Their membership would only be associate, or “half-way,” but the important point was that this partial membership entitled them to vote and therefore to political rights. This was a drastic change and could only weaken theocratic rule and considerably democratize oligarchic rule in Massachusetts. In 1662 another intercolonial synod reaffirmed the Half-Way Covenant, and the General Courts of Massachusetts and Connecticut advised its adoption by all the churches. From all sides and on many fronts the pressures were multiplying for dissolution of theocratic rule.