Hereford, and the final judgment in the Gorham case [see Hampden, Renn Dickson, and Gorham, George Cornelius], and was himself defendant in another ecclesiastical cause célebre. The high standard of eucharistic doctrine which, as examining chaplain to the bishop of Bath and Wells he set before the candidates for ordination led to a difference with the bishop's commissary, in which Denison was so ill supported by the bishop that he resigned (June 1853) [see Bagot, Richard, D.D.] He then defined his doctrinal position with exactitude in three sermons preached in Wells Cathedral (7 Aug., 6 Nov. 1853, 14 May 1854), which by their explicit affirmation of the objective real presence in the elements, and the consequent adorability of the sacrament, though not of the sensible species, furnished the Evangelical Alliance with matter for proceedings in the ecclesiastical courts. The prosecution, initiated ostensibly by the Rev. Joseph Ditcher, vicar of South Brent, was maintained with the utmost vigour, and met with an equally stout resistance. The result, as in the Gorham case, served only to illustrate the uncertainty of the law. Denison's views were declared contrary to the 28th and 29th of the Articles of Religion by Archbishop Sumner, sitting with assessors at Bath on 12 Aug. 1856, and as Denison declined to recant, he was sentenced to deprivation (22 Oct.) The execution of the sentence was, however, deferred pending an appeal to the court of arches, which resulted in its reversal on a technical point {23 April 1857), and an appeal from this decision was dismissed by the judicial committee of the privy council (6 Feb. 1858), without any determination of the substantive question.
Denison was editor of the 'Church and State Review' from its commencement in 1862 to its cessation in 1865. For many years he was a potent force in the convocation of Canterbury, which he succeeded in committing in 1863 to a censure (20 May) of Colenso's 'Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua critically examined,' and in the following year to a more formal condemnation (24 June) of 'Essays and Reviews.' He also led the illiberal opposition to the endowment of the regius chair of Greek at Oxford, for no other reason than that it was held by Benjamin Jowett [q. v. Suppl.], and entered his protest against Dr. Temple's consecration to the see of Exeter (December 1869). On the question of national education he continued to the end irreconcilable, and viewed the compromise effected in 1870 with unmitigated disgust. His attempt to foreclose the discussion on the Athanasian Creed, in the course of Dean Stanley's speech in the lower house of the convocation of Canterbury, on 24 April 1872, caused a dramatic scene which terminated in his temporary secession from the assembly. Essentially a high churchman of the old school, Denison never became a thorough-going ritualist, though in 1877 he joined the Society of the Holy Cross. Of the higher criticism he remained entirely unreceptive, and his disapprobation of 'Lux Mundi' caused his secession in 1892 from the English Church Union, of which he had been one of the founders. His later life was embittered by the recognition that the cause for which he had so sturdily contended was at least temporarily lost. His closing years were spent in comparative seclusion at East Brent, where, on 21 March 1896, he died. His remains were interred in East Brent churchyard on 26 March.
Denison was as genial in society as he was unsparing in controversy. He reserved his odium theologicum exclusively for public use; nor did antipodal divergence of view in the least degree impair the harmony of his private relations with Dean Stanley. To Gladstone's political action he was in his later years resolutely opposed, and his vehement denunciations in print of Gladstone's character and opinions attracted much public notice. As a parish priest he was an interesting example of a type now almost extinct dignified, kindly and paternally despotic, with a keen eye to the temporal as well as the spiritual needs of his flock. With him originated the now popular festival of 'harvest home,' and East Brent owes him a permanent debt of gratitude for the improvement at his own expense of its water supply. He married, on 4 Sept. 1838, Georgiana, eldest daughter of Joseph Warner Henley.
Besides his archidiaconal charges, the sermons on the Holy Eucharist already referred to, with others of his sermons, and some letters and other fugitive pieces, Denison published in 1855 'Saravia on the Holy Eucharist. The original Latin from the MS. in the British Museum, now printed for the first time,' edited with a translation (London, 3vo): a valuable contribution to the history of Anglo-catholic sacramental doctrine. Fie was also author of:
- 'Notes of my Life,' London, 1878, 8vo; 3rd edit. 1879.
- 'Mr. Gladstone,' London, 1885: a violent political diatribe which reached a fourth edition in 1886.
- 'Supplement to "Notes of my Life," 1879, and "Mr. Gladstone," 1886, Oxford and London, 1893, 8vo.
