Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/400

 guidance, out of the Calvinism which Wilkins retained.

The order for restoring Gunning to his fellowship was dated 20 June 1660. Apparently he did not at once claim it, for Tillotson remained in possession till February 1661, when Gunning insisted on his removal; this was effected the very day before Gunning's election as master of Corpus Christi College. Tillotson thought Gunning was moved by ‘some personal pique,’ and that an injustice was done him. He had not yet conformed, and was probably not in Anglican orders. The date of his ordination, without subscription, by Thomas Sydserf [q. v.] is conjectured by Birch to have been ‘probably in the latter end of 1660 or beginning of 1661.’ He was one of the nonconforming party to whom it was intended to offer preferment in the church. Had Edmund Calamy the elder [q. v.] accepted the bishopric of Coventry and Lichfield (kept open for him till December 1661), Tillotson was designed for a canonry at Lichfield. He was not in the commission for the Savoy conference, but in July 1661 he is specified by Baxter among ‘two or three scholars and laymen’ who attended as auditors on the nonconforming side. His first sermon was preached for his friend Denton at Oswaldkirk, North Riding of Yorkshire, but the date is not given. In September 1661 he took ‘upon but short warning’ Bates's place in the morning exercise at Cripplegate; the sermon was published (at first anonymously) and contains a characteristic quotation from John Hales of Eton. Some time in 1661 he became curate to Thomas Hacket, vicar of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire (afterwards bishop of Down and Connor), and deprived (1694), on Tillotson's advice (1691), for ‘scandalous neglect of his charge.’ At Cheshunt he lived with Sir Thomas Dacres ‘at the great house near the church,’ a house which he afterwards rented as a summer resort in conjunction with Stillingfleet. It seems probable that his was the signature, which appears as ‘John Tillots,’ to the petition presented on 27 Aug. 1662 (three days after the taking effect of the uniformity act) asking the king to ‘take some effectual course whereby we may be continued in the exercise of our ministry’ (, Lancashire, 1869, ii. 213). He won upon an anabaptist at Cheshunt, who preached ‘in a red coat,’ persuading him to give up his irregular ministry. Frequently he preached in London, especially for Wilkins at St. Lawrence Jewry. On 16 Dec. 1662 he was elected by the parishioners, patrons of St. Mary Aldermanbury, to succeed Calamy, the ejected perpetual curate. He declined; but in 1663 (mandate for induction, 18 June) he succeeded Samuel Fairclough [q. v.], the ejected rector of Kedington, Suffolk, being presented by Sir Thomas Barnardiston [q. v.] Happening to supply the place of the Tuesday lecturer at St. Lawrence Jewry, he was heard by Sir Edward Atkyns (1630–1698) [q. v.], then a bencher of Lincoln's Inn, by whose interest he was elected (26 Nov. 1663) preacher at Lincoln's Inn. Before June 1664 he resigned Kedington in favour of his curate; his own preaching had been distasteful to his puritan parishioners. Soon afterwards he was appointed Tuesday lecturer at St. Lawrence Jewry, of which church Wilkins was rector. This appointment, and the preachership at Lincoln's Inn, he retained until he became archbishop. Hickes affirms, and Burnet does not deny, that Tillotson gave the communion in Lincoln's Inn Chapel to some persons sitting; this practice he had certainly abandoned before 17 Feb. 1681–2, the date of his letter on the subject. Hickes further says that to avoid bowing at the name of Jesus ‘he used to step and bend backwards, casting up his eyes to heaven,’ whence Charles II said of him that ‘he bowed the wrong way, as the quakers do when they salute their friends.’

Tillotson cultivated his talent as a preacher with great care. He studied, besides biblical matter, the ethical writers of antiquity, and among the fathers, Basil and Chrysostom. The ease of his delivery made hearers suppose that he only used short notes, but he told Edward Maynard [q. v.], his successor at Lincoln's Inn, ‘that he had always written every word,’ and ‘us'd to get it by heart,’ but gave this up because ‘it heated his head so much a day or two before and after he preach'd.’ His example led William Wake [q. v.] ‘to preach no longer without book, since everybody, even Dr. Tillotson, had left it off.’ His gifts had not availed him with a country parish, but in London he got the ear, not only of a learned profession, but of the middle class. People who had heard him on Sunday went on Tuesday in hope of listening again to the same discourse. Baxter, who had ‘no great acquaintance’ with him, listened to his preaching with admiration of its spirit. Hitherto the pulpit had been the great stronghold of puritanism, under Tillotson it became a powerful agency for weaning men from puritan ideas. The consequent change of style was welcomed by Charles II, who, says Burnet, ‘had little or no literature, but true and sound sense, and a right notion of style;’ under royal favour, cumbrous construction and inordinate length were replaced by clearness and