Note 60 — Chapter XVI · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Tindal (1653–1733) was the son of a clergyman, and in 1678 was elected a Fellow of All Souls, Oxford. From 1685 to 1688 he was a Roman Catholic. Under William III he wrote three works on points of political freedom—one, 1698, on The Liberty of the Press. His Rights of the Christian Church, anonymously published in 1706, a defence of Erastianism, made a great sensation, and was prosecuted—only to be reprinted. His later Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church was in 1710, by order of the House of Commons, burned by the common hangman. ↑