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.