[b] The Hartford North Association in 1799 gave "information to all whom it may concern that the Constitution of the Churches in the State of Connecticut, founded on the common usage and confession of faith, Heads of Agreement, Articles of discipline adopted at the earliest period of the settlement of the State, is not Congregational, but contains the essentials of the Church of Scotland, or Presbyterian Church in America, particularly, as it gives a decisive power to Ecclesiastical Councils and a Consociation consisting of Ministers and Messengers, or lay representatives, from the churches, is possessed of substantially the same authority as a Presbytery." The fifteen ministers at this meeting of the Hartford North Association declared that there were in the state not more than ten or twelve Congregational churches, and that the majority were not, and never had been, constituted according to the Cambridge Platform, though they might, "loosely and vaguely, though improperly," be "termed Congregational Churches."--See MS. Records. Also G. L. Walker, _First Church in Hartford_, p. 358. CHAPTER VII 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]