Reverence for tradition was a very prominent feature in the theology of the older generation.  They spent an immense amount of time, learning, and ingenuity in establishing a catena of patristic and orthodox authority for their principles, reaching back to the earliest times, and handed down in this country by a series of Anglo-Catholic divines.  This unbroken tradition was conceived of as purely static, a ’mechanical unpacking,’ as Father Tyrrell puts it, of the doctrine once delivered to the Apostles.  The Church, according to their theory, was supernaturally guided by the Holy Ghost, and its decisions were consequently infallible, as long as the Church remained undivided.  Thus the earlier General Councils, before the schism between East and West, may not be appealed against, and the Creeds drawn up by them can never be revised.  Since the great schism, the infallible inspiration of the Church has been in abeyance, like an old English peerage when a peer leaves two or more daughters and no sons.  This fantastic theory condemns all later developments, and leaves the Church under the weight of the dead hand.  On the question of the Establishment the party was divided, some of its members attaching great value to the union of Church and State, while others made claims for the Church, in the matter of self-government, which were hardly compatible with Establishment.  Their bond of union was their conviction of ’the necessity of impressing on people that the Church was more than a merely human institution; that it had privileges, sacraments, a ministry, ordained by Christ Himself; that it was a matter of highest obligation to remain united to the Church.’[25]

As compared with their successors, the Tractarians were academic and learned; they preached thoughtful and carefully prepared sermons; they cared little for ecclesiastical millinery, and often acquiesced in very simple and ‘backward’ ceremonial.  Their theory of the Church, their personal piety and self-discipline, were of a thoroughly medieval type, as may be seen from certain chapters in the life of Pusey.  They fought the battle of Anglo-Catholicism, at Oxford and elsewhere, with a whole-hearted conviction that knew no misgivings or scruples.  Oxford has not forgotten the election, as late as 1862, of an orthodox naval officer to a chair of history for which Freeman was a candidate.

A change of tone was already noticeable, according to Dean Church, soon after Newman’s secession.  Many High Churchmen, in speaking of the English Church, became apologetic or patronising or lukewarm.  Progressive members of the party professed a distaste for the name Anglican, and wished to be styled Catholics pure and simple.  The same men began to speak of their opponents in the Church as Protestants; no longer as ultra-Protestants.  Other changes soon manifested themselves.  The archaeological side of the movement lost its interest; the appeal to antiquity became only a convenient argument to defend practices