1694.
From what we know of him, we should judge that the deficiency of results during his episcopate is to be attributed more to the difficulties of the times and the inconvenience of circumstances, than to want of ability or the absence of devotedness.
He was seized, in the Chapel at Whitehall, with paralysis on the 18th of November, 1694; and though the fit crept over him slowly, he would not call for assistance, lest he should disturb Divine worship. His death occurred on the 22nd, at the age of 65.
His character, as compared with Sancroft’s, has been differently viewed by enemies and friends. Nonjurors said that his predecessor devised no project for revolutionizing the Church, implying that Tillotson did; that his predecessor was no Latitudinarian, more than insinuating that Tillotson was; and when they spoke of Sancroft as a true Father, they meant to affirm that his successor was by no means such. “Intruder,” “thief,” “robber,” “ecclesiastical usurper,” were epithets fastened on the Archbishop of the Revolution. Burnet, on the other hand, extols him as a faithful friend, a gentle enemy, with a clear head and a tender heart, without superstition in his religion, and, as a preacher, the best of his age.[228]
In saying so much, Burnet probably went no further than facts warrant. And I would add, that if Sancroft made a sacrifice in renouncing the Archbishopric, Tillotson, according to his private confessions, made scarcely less sacrifice in accepting it.
TILLOTSON.
Intellectually he was a man of eminence;[229] what Burnet advances cannot be gainsayed; for Tillotson’s writings indicate a rare amount of common sense and of calm judgment, the more remarkable in an age of manifold passions;[230] and he shows eminent precision and force in stating propositions and arguments, at a time when a great deal of loose reasoning passed muster. His sermons are chiefly remarkable in this point of view. Free from Puritan stiffness, and what many would call Puritan enthusiasm, free also from that academical affectation which had so long offended pure taste,—they were couched in the language of common life, and people felt a strange pleasure, which they could not describe, at hearing from the pulpit language such as they heard at their own fireside. He seems to have aimed at that which ought to be the object of every Christian preacher, to translate the truths of the Gospel into such forms of thought and utterance as were suited to the age in which he lived. He spoke upon religion just as men talk upon every-day topics; and thus he brought down Divinity to the level of his congregation. He could be earnest and even vehement in the inculcation of truth and duty; and never would he be more acceptable to a large class of his hearers than when, with tact and warmth, he exposed the errors of Popery—an opportunity for doing which he rarely, if ever, missed. His habit, too, of insisting upon the reasonableness of almost everything he taught would coincide with the current which, in educated circles, had strongly set in against the enforcement of morality and religion on grounds of authority. Preachers not only help to promote, but they reflect the spirit of their own times. Their modes of teaching are fashioned by it. A reaction had arisen against the authority of the Church, of the Fathers, of the Schoolmen, and of the Reformers; consequently, sermons filled with quotations and appeals to great names were no longer in request. Even Scripture came to be less favourably used in the way of exclusive authority, than in the way of addition to the force of reasoning. Texts were with many not so much corner-stones, as pillars and buttresses. Tillotson made a large use of Scripture, but the common key-note with him was the reasonableness of the doctrines he laid down. I should suppose that his appearance, his voice, and his manner in the pulpit—the fact of what he was, as well as the circumstance of what he said, and that indefinable something which contributes so much to a speaker’s popularity—added immensely to the impressiveness of his elocution. There is for modern readers nothing attractive in his style, quite the reverse. I know scarcely any other popular sermons so hard to read. Some are exceedingly dry and uninteresting.[231] From natural temperament he lacked what is signified by the word unction. He has no strokes of pathos, and the spirit of his theology adds to the defect, by depriving his sermons, to some extent, of that light and beauty, that tenderness and power, which proceed from a clear insight into the deepest spiritual wants of humanity, and the supply made for them in the unsearchable riches of Christ.
1694.
Wit was not wanting amongst Tillotson’s gifts. “I hate a fanatic in lawn sleeves,” cried one of his detractors—“I hate a knave in any sleeves,” replied the Prelate. He said South “wrote like a man, but bit like a dog;” and when South replied, “he would rather bite like a dog, than fawn like one,” Tillotson rejoined, “that for his part he would choose to be a spaniel rather than a cur.”[232] Sancroft was a Tory. Tillotson, through the discipline of the Revolution, had cast off the last remnant of the doctrine which he unfortunately inculcated at the time of Russel’s execution. Tillotson had by his Puritan birth, childhood, and education, imbibed feelings which he never completely lost; and his personal sympathies with those who retained a Puritan creed continued to live in his later days, fostered by friendly intercourse with members of nonconforming communions. Yet perhaps he had not a whit more of love for Nonconformity than High Churchmen, whose reputation for charity his own completely eclipsed.
TENISON.