sacrifice the
friendship of a good man to any difference of opinion, and too hearty a
zeal in good works to let his personal predilections stand in the way of
them, he belonged very distinctively to the High Church party. Some of
his best and most prominent characteristics did not connect him with one
more than with another section of the Church. The philanthropical
activity, which did so much to preserve him from narrowness and
intolerance, was, as Tillotson has observed, one of the most redeeming
features of the period in which he lived;[92] the genial serenity of his
religion is like the spirit that breathed in Addison. But all his deeper
sympathies were with the High Churchmen and Nonjurors--men who had been
brought up in that spirit of profound attachment to Anglo-Catholic
theology and feeling which was prominent among Church of England divines
in the age that preceded the Commonwealth.

The Church party of which, at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
Nelson and his friends were worthy representatives, was rapidly losing
strength. Soon after his death it had almost ceased to exist as a
visible and united power. The general tone of feeling in Church matters
became so unfavourable to its continued vigour, that it gradually
dwindled away. Not that there was no longer a High Church, and even a
strong High Church party. There has been no period in the history of the
Reformed English Church in which the three leading varieties of opinion,
so familiar to us at the present day, may not be distinctly traced. The
eighteenth century is certainly no exception; from its first to its last
year so-called High Churchmen were abundant everywhere, especially among
the clergy. But they would scarcely have been recognised as such by
Nelson, or by those with whom he chiefly sympathised. The type became
altered, and not for the better. A change had already set in before the
seventeenth century closed; and when in quick succession Bull and
Beveridge, Ken and Nelson, passed away, there were no new men who could
exactly supply their places. The High Churchmen who belonged more
distinctly to Queen Anne's reign, and those of the succeeding Georgian
era, lacked some of the higher qualities of the preceding generations.
They numbered many worthy, excellent men, but there was no longer the
same depth of feeling, the same fervour, the same spirit of willing
self-denial, the same constant reference to a supposed higher standard
of primitiv