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"Power and efficacy": A Tillotsonian Easter

He was not a churchman of the stamp of Tillotson and the school that followed him. He did not lay aside justification by faith, and the need of grace, for semi-heathen disquisitions about morality and duty, virtue and vice - J.C. Ryle on George Whitefield in The Christian Leaders of England in the Eighteenth Century (1869). 

Ryle's critique of Tillotson (shared by the Tractarian interpretation of the 18th century) might lead us to imagine that a Tillotsonian Easter would be characterised by one of those "semi-heathen disquisitions about morality and duty".

Tillotson, however, would disappoint.

The Lord's Resurrection, he declared, is no mere example but the cause of our participation in "a new and heavenly life":

The resurrection of Christ is not only a pattern, but hath a power and efficacy in it, to raise us to a spiritual and heavenly life. When Christ rose, he did not rise alone, but many of the bodies of the saints who were dead rose with him, to signify to us the power of his resurrection. It communicated a virtue to those who had an interest in the merits of his death and sufferings, whereby they are enabled to live a new and heavenly life (Sermon CXCIV, Volume VIII of the Works).

Tillotson continued in the same sermon to root the moral life in the saving events of Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension:

for there is a power and virtue in the resurrection of Christ, and in his ascension into heaven, as well as in his death, to draw all men to him. The gift of God's Holy Spirit is the fruit of his ascension and exaltation "at the right hand of the Majesty on high": and it is by the powerful operation of the Spirit of God upon our hearts, that we are raised to newness of life, and our affections fixed upon heavenly things.

And while Ryle would have been scandalized by it, the Tractarians who shared his dismissive approach to 18th century Anglicanism should have recognised in Tillotson a robust affirmation of regenerating grace in Holy Baptism as a means of our participation in the Resurrection: 

I grant that the nature of man is very much corrupted, and degenerated from its primitive integrity and perfection: but we who are Christians, have received that grace in baptism, whereby our natures are so far healed, as, if we be not wanting to ourselves, and do not neglect the means which God hath appointed to us, we may mortify our lusts, and live a new life (Sermon CXV, Volume V).

Contrary to Ryle, then, a Tillotsonian Easter is shot through with revealed truth and saving grace, a grace bestowed on us through the Sacrament of Baptism and bearing fruit in the moral life.  Mindful of Tillotson's influence in shaping the ethos of the Church of England over the following century, it is a reminder of the doctrinal orthodoxy, emphasis on the need of grace, and lively sacramental life which characterised the mainstream of 18th century Anglicanism.

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