what passed in that age for brevity; the mincing of texts and doctrines was superseded by addresses to reason and feeling, in a strain which, never impassioned, was always suasive.
When Tillotson made suit during 1663 for the hand of Oliver Cromwell's niece, Elizabeth French, her stepfather, John Wilkins, ‘upon her desiring to be excused,’ said: ‘Betty, you shall have him; for he is the best polemical divine this day in England.’ He had published nothing as yet of a polemical kind (Birch), but Wilkins rightly judged the effect of his pulpit work, as a practical antidote to the danger of popery, supervening upon the prevalent irreligion. Such was the tenor of his first famous sermon, ‘The Wisdom of being Religious’ (1664); the dedication to the lord mayor curiously anticipates the tone of Butler's ‘advertisement’ to the ‘Analogy’ (1736), with this difference, that by Butler's time the atheism of the age had (largely owing to the labours of Tillotson's school) been reduced to deism. His expressly polemic writing against Roman catholicism began with his ‘Rule of Faith’ (1666) in answer to John Sergeant [q. v.] Hickes thought he owed much to the suggestions of Zachary Cradock [q. v.], which Burnet denies. The work is addressed to Stillingfleet, and has an appendix by him. John Austin (1613–1669) [q. v.] took part in the discussion, which really turned on the authority of reason in religious controversy. An argument against transubstantiation, introduced by Tillotson in his ‘Rule of Faith’ and developed in his later polemical writings, led Hume to balance experience against testimony in his ‘Essay on Miracles’ (1748).
In 1666 Tillotson took the degree of D.D. His preferment was not long delayed. He became chaplain to Charles II, who gave him, in succession to Gunning, the second prebend at Canterbury (14 March 1670), and promoted him to the deanery (4 Nov. 1672) in succession to Thomas Turner (1591–1672) [q. v.], though Charles disliked his preaching against popery, and his sermon at Whitehall (early in 1672) on ‘the hazard of being saved in the Church of Rome’ had caused the Duke of York to cease attending the chapel royal. With the deanery of Canterbury he held a prebend (Ealdland) at St. Paul's (18 Dec. 1675), exchanging it (14 Feb. 1676–7) for a better (Oxgate). This last preferment was given him by Heneage Finch, first earl of Nottingham [q. v.], at the suggestion of his chaplain, John Sharp (1645–1714) [q. v.], whose father had business connections with Tillotson's brother Joshua (a London oilman, whose name appears as ‘Tillingson’ in the directory of 1677; he died on 16 Sept. 1678).
It is clear from Baxter's account that Birch is wrong in connecting Tillotson (and Stillingfleet) with the proposals for comprehension of nonconformists prepared by Wilkins and Hezekiah Burton [q. v.] in January 1668. It was in October or November 1674 that Tillotson and Stillingfleet first approached the leading nonconformists, through Bates. Tillotson and Baxter jointly drafted a bill for comprehension, which Baxter prints; those formerly ordained ‘by parochial pastors only’ were now to be authorised by ‘a written instrument,’ purposely ambiguous. The negotiation was ended by a letter (11 April 1675) from Tillotson to Baxter, announcing the hopelessness of obtaining the concurrence of the king or ‘a considerable part of the bishops,’ and withholding his name from publication. He preached, however, at the Yorkshire feast (3 Dec. 1678), in favour of concessions to nonconformist scruples. He took great interest in the efforts made by the nonconformist Thomas Gouge [q. v.] for education and evangelisation in Wales, acted as a trustee of Gouge's fund, and preached his funeral sermon (1681) in a strain of fervid eulogy.
In May 1675 Tillotson visited his father, who had ‘traded all away,’ and to whose support he contributed 40l. a year. He preached at Sowerby on Whitsunday (23 May) and the following Sunday at Halifax. Oliver Heywood reports the puritan judgment on his sermons as plain and honest, ‘though some expressions were accounted dark and doubtful.’ Halifax tradition, as reported by Hunter, represents Robert Tillotson as saying ‘that his son had preached well, but he believed he had done more harm than good.’ His connection with William of Orange, according to a hearsay account preserved by Eachard, dates from November 1677, when William visited Canterbury after his marriage; the details, as Birch has shown, are not trustworthy.
Much stir was made by his sermon at Whitehall on 2 April 1680, in vindication of the protestant religion ‘from the charge of singularity and novelty.’ He had prepared his sermon with ‘little notice,’ having been called on owing to the illness of the appointed preacher. In an unguarded passage he maintained that private liberty of conscience did not extend to making proselytes from ‘the establish'd religion,’ in the absence of a miraculous warrant. According to Hickes, who is confirmed by Calamy, ‘a witty Lord’ signalised this as Hobbism, and procured the printing of the sermon by
