John Tillotson - Curate and Rector

Curate and Rector

Tillotson was the son of a Puritan clothier at Haughend, Sowerby, Yorkshire. He entered as a pensioner of Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1647, graduated in 1650 and was made fellow of his college in 1651. In 1656 he became tutor to the son of Edmund Prideaux, attorney-general to Oliver Cromwell. About 1661 he was ordained without subscription by Thomas Sydserf, a Scottish bishop. Tillotson was present at the Savoy Conference in 1661, and remained identified with the Presbyterians until the passing of the Act of Uniformity 1662. Shortly afterwards he became curate of Cheshunt, Herts, and in June 1663, rector of Kedington, Suffolk.

He now devoted himself to an exact study of biblical and patristic writers, especially Basil and Chrysostom. The result of this reading, and of the influence of John Wilkins, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was seen in the general tone of his preaching, which was practical rather than theological, concerned with issues of personal morality instead of theoretical doctrine. This plain style of preaching is reflective of the late 17th century, when the integration of reason into Protestant theology came to be seen as one of its finest attributes against Roman Catholicism. Tillotson himself was personally tolerant enough towards Roman Catholics, remarking in a famous sermon that " Papists, I doubt not, are made like other men. "

He was a man of the world as well as a divine, and in his sermons he exhibited a tact which enabled him at once to win the ear of his audience. In 1664 he became preacher at Lincoln's Inn. The same year he married Elizabeth French, a niece of Oliver Cromwell; and he also became Tuesday lecturer at St Lawrence, Jewry (where he was later buried). Tillotson employed his controversial weapons with some skill against atheism and Catholicism. In 1663 he published a characteristic sermon on "The Wisdom of being Religious," and in 1666 replied to John Sergeant's Sure Footing in Christianity by a pamphlet on the "Rule of Faith." The same year he received the degree of D.D.