Ordained in 1928,[4] he began his ecclesiastical career with a curacy at St Jude's Southsea.
Later, he was a tutor at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and then Vicar of St Andrew's in the same city.
[6] From then until 1952 he was Professor of Theology at the Episcopal Divinity School at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Moving back to England he was Canon Residentiary and Chancellor of Liverpool Cathedral from 1952 to 1956 and then its Dean until 1963.
In 1968, he delivered the Bampton Lectures under the title 'Traditional Symbols and the Contemporary World'.