Educated at Cambridge under the Commonwealth by Puritan tutors, he afterwards became identified with the Latitudinarian school of Divines, but in 1661 we find him amongst the Presbyterians, preaching a morning exercise at Cripplegate. He certainly conformed in 1662, and that fact itself implies his submission to Episcopal ordination. At an early period he attained celebrity as a preacher, although he read his sermons, and never was able to preach without a manuscript. It is related of him that on one occasion he made an attempt to speak extempore upon a plain text, and one upon which he has five discourses in his printed works; yet he found himself so much at a loss, “that after about ten minutes spent with great pain to himself, and no great satisfaction to his audience, he came down with a resolution never to make the like attempt for the future.”[217] He was successively Curate at Cheshunt; Rector of Ketton, or Kedington in the County of Suffolk; preacher at Lincoln’s Inn; Tuesday Lecturer at St. Lawrence, Jewry; and Canon and Dean of Canterbury. After the Revolution he accepted the Deanery of St. Paul’s, and his position in reference to public affairs at that juncture has been noticed already; here it will be sufficient to trace the steps by which he reached the highest position in the Church of England. In some way Tillotson had become a personal favourite with the Prince of Orange, and had been desired to preach before him at St. James’s, soon after his arrival in London. Burnet interested himself zealously on the Dean’s behalf; but, beyond personal grounds, the popularity of this Divine as a preacher, his eminent abilities, his opposition to the policy of the late King, his liberal politics, his desire for Comprehension, his conciliatory temper, and his moderation in ecclesiastical affairs, recommended him to the new Sovereign as fitted to occupy the post vacated by Sancroft. The very day Tillotson kissed hands on his appointment to the Deanery in September, 1689, the King told him, in reply to his thanks for an office which had set him at ease for the rest of his life, that this was no great matter, for his services would soon be needed in the highest office of the Church.[218] In February, 1690, William pressed upon Tillotson the acceptance of the Primacy; of his extreme reluctance to accept it there can be no doubt; his conversation with his Royal Master, his correspondence with Lady Rachel Russell, and his own private memoranda, prove that if ever a man honestly said, _Nolo Episcopari_, Tillotson did. What he wrote within a year afterwards shows that to him the archiepiscopal throne was a bed, not of roses, but of thorns. The _congé d’élire_ was issued May the 1st, and his consecration followed on Whit-Sunday at St. Mary-le-Bow, when the congregation included some of the principal Whig nobility, and his progress along Cheapside was an ovation amidst crowds who admired both his eloquence and his liberality. [Sidenote: 1691.]