He was son of John Tillinghast, rector of Streat, Sussex, and was born there in 1604 (baptised 25 Sept.) The regicide Robert Tichborne was his uncle.
From the grammar school of Newport, Essex, he went to Cambridge, and on 24 March 1620-1, his age being sixteen, was admitted pensioner of Gonville and Caius College; he graduated B.A.
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.
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.
Another Pardon Tillinghast, born at Sevencliffe, near Beachey Head, about 1622, became Baptist minister at Providence, Rhode Island.