John Tillinghast was an English clergyman and Fifth-monarchy manitoba
Background
He was son of John Tillinghast, rector of Streat, Sussex, and was born there in 1604 (baptised 25 September) The regicide Robert Tichborne was his uncle. On 29 September 1637 he was inducted, in succession to his father, as rector of Streat. He held the living till 1643, when he was known as a preacher in London.
Education
From the grammar school of Newport, Essex, he went to Cambridge, and on 24 March 1620-1621, his age being sixteen, was admitted pensioner of Gonville and Caius College. He graduated Bachelor of Arts 1624-1625.
Career
He is known for his confrontation with Oliver Cromwell, and millenarian writings. His first known preferment was the rectory of Tarring Neville, Sussex, to which he was inducted on 30 July 1636. On 24 June 1651 he was re-baptised.
On 13 January 1652 the independent churches of Cookley, Suffolk, Fressingfield, Suffolk, and Trunch, Norfolk, presented simultaneous calls to Tillinghast.
The Yarmouth flock released him on 27 January, and he elected to go to Trunch, where he held the rectory. His millenarian opinions, which he shared with (perhaps adopted from) Richard Breviter, or Brabiter, of North Walsham, were of a purely spiritual type, and his general theology was in strict accordance with the Thirty-nine Articles.
In the spring of 1655 he came up to London to remonstrate with Cromwell and console the imprisoned "saints" of his party. He visited Christopher Feake in Windsor Castle.
Nathaniel Brewster, rector of Alby, Norfolk, introduced him to Cromwell, whom he addressed in frank terms.
Brewster felt he went too far. Shortly after this he died in London, early in June 1655. Another John Tillinghast, son of Pardon Tillinghast of Alfriston, Sussex, matriculated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 14 July 1642, aged 17.
Another Pardon Tillinghast, born at Sevencliffe, near Beachey Head, about 1622, became Baptist minister at Providence, Rhode Island.
Membership
He became an independent before the end of 1650, and was admitted member of the newly formed church at Syleham, Suffolk.