The group composed of Nelson and his friends, of whom he had many, and never lost one, would be pleasant to contemplate, if for no other reason, yet as the picture of a set of earnest men, united in common attachment to one central figure, varying much on some points of opinion, but each endeavouring to live worthily of the Christian faith.  From one point of view the features of dissimilarity among his friends are more interesting than those of resemblance.  A Churchman, with whom Jurors and Nonjurors met on terms of equal cordiality, who was intimate alike with Tillotson and Hickes—­whose love for Ken was nowise incompatible with much esteem for Kidder, the ‘uncanonical usurper’ of his see—­and who consulted for the advancement of Christian knowledge as readily with Burnet, Patrick, and Fowler, as with Bull, Beveridge, and Sharp—­represents a sort of character which every national Church ought to produce in abundance, but which stands out in grateful relief from the contentions which embittered the first years of the century and the spiritual dulness which set in soon afterwards.

Yet, though Robert Nelson had too warm a heart to 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