relying confidently upon it.’[283] He knew well—­his father had been a bright example of it—­that such doctrines are constantly found in close union with great integrity and holiness of life.  But he knew also the deplorable effects which have often attended even an apparent dissociation of faith and morality; he had seen, and still saw, how deep and permanent, both by its inherent evil and by the recoil that follows, is the wound inflicted upon true religion by overstrained professions, unreal phraseology, and the form without the substance of godliness.  He saw clearly, what many have failed to see, that righteousness is the principal end of all religion; that faith, that revelation, that all spiritual aids, that the incarnation of the Son of God and the redemption He has brought, have no other purpose or meaning than to raise men from sin and from a lower nature, to build them up in goodness, and to renew them in the image of God.  He unswervingly maintained that immorality is the worst infidelity,[284] as being not only inconsistent with real faith, but the contradiction of that highest end which faith has in view.  Tillotson was a true preacher of righteousness.  The fault of his preaching was that by too exclusive a regard to the object of all religion, he dwelt insufficiently on the way by which it is accomplished.  If some had almost forgotten the end in thinking of the means, he was apt to overlook the means in thinking of the end.  His eyes were so steadfastly fixed on the surpassing beauty of Christian morality, that it might often seem as if he thought the very contemplation of so much excellence were a sufficient incentive to it.  His constantly implied argument is, that if men, gifted with common reason, can be persuaded to think what goodness is, its blessedness alike in this world and the next, and on the other hand the present and future consequences of sin, surely reason itself will teach them to be wise.  He is never the mere moralist.  His Christian faith is ever present to his mind, raising and purifying his standard of what is good, and placing in an infinitely clearer light than could otherwise be possible the sanctions of a life to come.  Nor does he speak with an uncertain tone when he touches on any of its most distinctive doctrines.  Never either in word or thought does he consciously disparage or undervalue them.  Notwithstanding all that Leslie and others could urge against him, he was a sincere, and, in all essential points, an orthodox believer in the tenets of revealed religion.  But he dwelt upon them insufficiently.  He regarded them too much as mysteries of faith, established on good evidence, to be firmly held and reverently honoured; above all, not to be lightly argued about in tones of controversy.  He never fully realised what a treasury they supply of motives to Christian conduct, and of material for sublime and ennobling thought; above all, that religion never has a missionary and converting power when they are not prominently brought forward.