Tindal

Tindal, MATTHEW, a notable deistical writer, was the son of the rector of Beerferris in South Devon, where he was born in 1656. He was educated at Lincoln and Exeter Colleges, Oxford, took the degree of B.A. in 1676, and was elected fellow of All Souls College. In 1685 he became a Doctor of Law; and after a brief lapse into Romanism during the reign of James II., reverted to Protestantism of a somewhat freethinking type. His first work, An Essay concerning Obedience to the Supreme Powers (1693), was followed by others on the powers of the magistrates in religious matters, on the liberty of the press, &c.; but it was not till 1706 that he attracted special notice, when the publication of his treatise on The Rights of the Christian Church asserted against the Romish and all other Priests raised a storm of opposition. A perfect torrent of replies and refutations of this statement of state supremacy over the church poured from the press; but even a prosecution failed to prevent the appearance of a fourth edition in 1709, to which a Defence was added. On the Continent Tindal's work was quite differently received. Le Clerc praised it as one of the solidest defences of Protestantism ever written. In 1730, when he had nearly reached the age of seventy-three, he published his most celebrated treatise, Christianity as old as the Creation, or the Gospel a Republication of the Religion of Nature, which effectually settled the question of his religious creed. The design of the work, which was soon known as 'the Deist's Bible,' is to strip religion 'of the additions which policy, mistake, and the circumstances of the time have made to it'—in other words, to eliminate the supernatural element, and to prove that its morality, which is admitted to be worthy of an 'infinitely wise and good God,' is its true and only claim to the reverence of mankind. Tindal's purpose was rather constructive than destructive; and it was on this account that he called himself a 'Christian Deist.' Answers or refutations were issued by Waterland, Foster, Conybeare (afterwards Bishop of Bristol), Leland (q.v.), and others; the work itself was translated into German. Tindal died at Oxford, still a fellow of his college, on the 16th August 1733. See the article DEISM, and works there cited.