'This great miracle': a Tillotson sermon for Whitsuntide

During this Whitsuntide, laudable Practice will be posting extracts from Whitsun sermons by Tillotson. Considering how his sermons were widely regarded by Anglicans throughout the 18th century, there is a sense in which they provide an insight into the spiritual vitality of Anglicanism during this era. His Whitsun sermons, of course, draw particular attention to how the Person and work of the Holy Spirit were considered. In reading them, we are struck not by what is often caricatured as an insipid 'latitudinarian rationalism' but, rather, by a lively, vital affirmation of the role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life.

We begin with a Whitsunday sermon on the opening of the Acts reading for the feast, Act 2:1-4: Luke's description of "cloven tongues, as of fire" and the disciples speaking in "other tongues". The sermon is entitled 'Of the Gift of Tongues Conferred on the Apostles' and Tillotson is explicit that this miraculous gift of Pentecost - "so strange and astonishing a miracle" - did indeed occur:

I know not who was the first author of that conceit, that the miracle was not in the speakers, but in the hearers; that is, the apostles spake in their own mother tongue (the Syriac), and the hearers of several nations heard them every one in their own language; which indeed must be acknowledged to be as great a miracle, or greater, than if the apostles had spoken so many different languages: but this seems to be a very groundless and unreasonable conceit, and very contrary to this relation of this miraculous gift, and to all the circumstances of it. For the text expressly says, that they spake "with other tongues;" that is, in languages different from their mother tongue, in which they spake before, otherwise they could not be called other, or new tongues. 

This was the fulfillment of the promise given by Our Lord on the eve of His Passion, that the disciples would do "greater works" because of His Ascension to the Father:

And this was the first sensible effect of the coming of the Holy Ghost upon them, the first miraculous power with which he endowed his apostles, after he was ascended into heaven, and gone to his Father; an evident testimony of the glory and power which he was invested withal, after he was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God, to signify both the honour and power which was conferred upon him, in that he enabled his apostles, when he was absent from them, to do that which, whilst he was present with them, he had never enabled them to do, nor ever did himself; all which tends to advance this miracle, and to shew the greatness and strangeness of it above any other.

It was the reality of this miracle which led to the "mighty effect" of the gathering in of the first-fruits of the nations on the day of Pentecost:

It had so glaring an evidence, and carried such conviction in it, that the doctrine which they who were endowed with miraculous gifts did preach, was immediately received and entertained by a very great number of the hearers; who, upon the conviction of this great miracle, became proselytes to this new religion, and were solemnly admitted to the profession of it by baptism; as we read, ver. 41. of this chapter; where, after St. Peter had made an end of his sermon to the people upon this occasion, it is said, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized; and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls." Here was a mighty effect, three thousand converted at one sermon, being convinced by the evidence of this miracle. And it is a very immediate effect; for it is said, that "the same day three thousand were added to the church." Here was an effect proportionable to the greatness and strangeness of its cause; a mighty victory gained over the prejudices of men, and the powers of darkness, by the light and conviction of this miracle, which our Saviour seems to have kept in reserve for this great occasion, when his gospel and religion was to be first published, and to make its solemn entrance into the world. Here was a large portion of first fruits, and a great earnest of that spiritual harvest, which the apostles had began to reap; of which the first-fruits among the Jews were a type: for their harvest also was at this very season of the year.

Tillotson concludes his sermon with a fine refutation of the allegation of 'latitudinarian rationalism'. He asks whether another miracle of Pentecost is required:

Whether there be any necessity now, and, consequently, probability, of the renewing of this miracle, in order to the conversion of infidels, and the gaining over of those many and great nations in the remoter parts of the world, who are still strangers and enemies to the Christian religion.

Admitting that he does not provide his answer "as positive, but only as probable, divinity", he yet declares that a new Pentecost is necessary:

it seems to me, in this case, not at all improbable, that God would extraordinarily countenance such an attempt, by all fitting assistance, as he did the first publication of the gospel: for as the wisdom of God is not wont to do that which is superfluous, so neither is it wanting in that which is necessary. And from what hath been said upon this argument, the necessity seems to be much the same that it was at first.

Quite how the nonsense of the supposed 'dry moralism' of 18th century Anglicanism is still assumed by far too many Anglican commentators is difficult to explain in light of the evidence of such preaching by a divine who was the most lauded Anglican preacher of that century. Indeed, I do wonder how many Anglican pulpits yesterday heard such an explicit, confident affirmation of the miracle of Pentecost. As for those who urge a more 'Spirit-filled' Anglicanism, we have a suitably surprising answer, appropriate for Whitsuntide - preach like Tillotson!

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Tillotson's Sermon CXCVI, 'Of the Gift of Tongues Conferred on the Apostles', is found in The Works of Tillotson, Volume VIII.