TINDAL, MATTHEW (d. 1733), English deist, the son of a clergyman, was born at Beer Ferrers (Ferris), Devonshire, probably in 1653. He studied law at Lincoln college, Oxford, under the high churchman George Hickes, dean of Worcester; in 1678 he was elected fellow of All Souls college. About 1685 he became a Roman Catholic, but returned to the Church of Eng land at Easter, 1688. His early works were an Essay of Obedi ence to the Supreme Powers ; an Essay on the Power of the Magistrate and the Rights of Mankind in Matters of Re• ligion (1697) ; and The Liberty of the Press (1698). The first of his two larger works, The Rights of the Christian Church asso ciated against the Romish and all other priests who claim an in dependent power over it, pt. i., appearing anonymously in 1706 (2nd ed., 1706; 3rd, 1707; 4th, 1709), is a forcible defence of Erastianism. Author, publisher and printer were prosecuted, but this did not prevent the issue of a fourth edition and gave the author the opportunity of issuing A Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church, in two parts (2nd ed., 1709). The book was, by
order of the House of Commons, burned, along with Sacheverell's sermon, by the common hangman (1710). It continued to be the object of denunciation for years, and Tindal scented in a pastoral letter by Dr. Gibson, bishop of London, a charge of having undermined religion and promoted atheism and infidelity. He replied in the anonymous tract, An Address to the Inhabitants of London and Westminster (2nd ed., 1730). In this tract he defends the deists, and anticipates here and there his Christianity as Old as the Creation; or, the Gospel a Republication of the Religion of Nature (London, 1730, 2nd ed., 1731 ; 3rd, 1732; 4th, 1733), which was regarded as the "Bible" of deism. He died at Oxford on Aug. 16,