With Alline's theology based on the eternal love of God and the ability of all people, male or female, high- or low-born, to achieve salvation, a path forward was perhaps available. That new radical idea instilled in the Planters a new feeling of identity and security. It pointed the way out of their spiritual malaise and showed them a path to achieve a nonconformist loyalty to the British authority but still be viewed by their New England neighbours as standing apart from the British. By default, they had found a neutrality of sorts and also began the process of creating a Maritime identity.