John Tillotson - Dean of Canterbury and Archbishop

Dean of Canterbury and Archbishop

In 1670 he became prebendary and in 1672 dean of Canterbury. That latter year he was alao elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1675 he edited John Wilkins's Principles of Natural Religion, completing what was left unfinished of it, and in 1682 his Sermons. Along with Burnet, Tillotson attended William Russell, Lord Russell on the scaffold in 1683. In 1684, he wrote a Discourse against Transubstantiation. He afterwards enjoyed the friendship of Lady Russell, and it was partly through her that he obtained so much influence with Princess Anne, who followed his advice in regard to the settlement of the crown on William of Orange. He possessed the special confidence of William and Mary, and was made clerk of the closet to the king in March 1689.

It was chiefly through his advice that the king appointed an ecclesiastical commission for the reconciliation of the Dissenters. In August of this year he was appointed by the chapter of his cathedral to exercise the archiepiscopal jurisdiction of the province of Canterbury during the suspension of Sancroft. He was also about the same time named dean of St Paul's. Soon afterwards he was elected to succeed Sancroft; but accepted the promotion with extreme reluctance, and it was deferred from time to time, at his request, until April 1691. In 1693 he published four lectures on the Socinian controversy, partly to clear his own name from charges of sympathy with Socinianism in his previous associations with Thomas Firmin, Stephen Nye and others.

His attempts to reform certain abuses of the Church, especially that of clerical non-residence, awakened much ill-will, and of this the Jacobites took advantage, pursuing him to the end of his life with insult and reproach. He died on 22 November 1694.

For his manuscript sermons Tillotson's widow received 2500 guineas. Ralph Barker edited some 250 of them together with the "Rule of Faith" (1695–1704). In 1752 an edition appeared in 3 vols., with Life by Thomas Birch, compiled from Tillotson's original papers and letters. Various selections from his sermons and works have been published separately. AMS Press, New York, published a modern edition of his works in the 1980s. In his home town of Sowerby, a statue of Tillotson still exists in St. Peter's church and an avenue is named after him in the lower end of the town.