Note 152b — Chapter V

This statute, though it was invaluable to the dissenters, and was gratefully received by them, as affording considerable protection, and as opening the way for further improvements, was, nevertheless, encumbered with intolerance. It afforded no relief to Papists, or Unitarians. It exacted from dissenting teachers a subscription to nearly all the Articles of the church of England; it did not abrogate the Corporation and Test Acts; nor permit the solemnization of marriage by dissenters in their own places of worship, nor exonerate them from the obligation to contribute to the maintenance of the public religious establishment, though they do not attend on its ministrations. To a great extent, these deformities have been removed by successive struggles. The period immediately following the revolution may be regarded as one of comparative bondage; but much still remains to be accomplished, before the religion of the Bible will have shaken off all the impediments which have hitherto interrupted its free and triumphant course.