[3] In 1828 he was elected fellow of Oriel College; and after a few years there as a tutor, during which he was ordained and acted as curate at Cuddesdon, he became rector of Broadwindsor, Dorset (1838).

[4] For many years Denison represented the extreme High Tory party not only in politics but in the church, regarding all progressive movements in education or theology as abomination, and vehemently repudiating the higher criticism from the days of Essays and Reviews (1860) to those of Lux Mundi (1890).

[5] On 7 August and 6 November 1853, he preached two sermons in Wells Cathedral on the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, taking a position similar to that for which Edward Bouverie Pusey had been suspended ten years before.

In 1857, before the Court of Appeals had rendered its decision, John Keble wrote one of his more important works, his treatise on eucharistic adoration, in support of Denison.

Until the end of his life, he remained a protagonist in theological controversy and a keen fighter against latitudinarianism and liberalism; but the sharpest religious or political differences never broke his personal friendships and his Christian charity.