These statutes, records of their adversaries' power, the whigs, now lords of the ascendant, determined to abrogate. The dissenters were unanimously zealous for the house of Hanover and for the ministry; the church of very doubtful loyalty to the Crown, and still less affection to the whig name. In the session of 1719, accordingly, the act against occasional conformity, and that restraining education, were repealed.[358] It had been the intention to have also repealed the test act; but the disunion then prevailing among the whigs had caused so formidable an opposition even to the former measures, that it was found necessary to abandon that project. Walpole, more cautious and moderate than the ministry of 1719, perceived the advantage of reconciling the church as far as possible to the royal family and to his own government; and it seems to have been an article in the tacit compromise with the bishops, who were not backward in exerting their influence for the Crown, that he should make no attempt to abrogate the laws which gave a monopoly of power to the Anglican communion. We may presume also that the prelates undertook not to obstruct the acts of indemnity passed from time to time in favour of those who had not duly qualified themselves for the offices they held; and which, after some time becoming regular, have in effect thrown open the gates to protestant dissenters, though still subject to be closed by either house of parliament, if any jealousies should induce them to refuse their assent to this annual enactment.[359]