DR MATTHEW, a famous English writer, was the son of the reverend Mr John Tindal of Beer-Ferres in Devonshire, and was born about the year 1657. He studied at Lincoln college in Oxford, whence he removed to Exeter, and was afterwards elected fellow of All-Souls. In 1685 he took the degree of doctor of law, and in the reign of James II. declared himself a Roman Catholic; but soon renounced that religion. After the revolution he published several pamphlets in favour of government, the liberty of the press, &c. His "Rights of the Christian Church asserted," occasioned his having a violent contest with the high-church clergy; and his treatise "Christianity as old as the Creation," published in 1730, made much noise, and was answered by several writers, particularly by Dr Conybeare, Mr Forster, and Dr Leland. Dr Tindal died at London in August 1733. He left in manuscript a second volume of his "Christianity as old as the Creation;" the preface to which has been published. Mr Pope has satirized Dr Tindal in his Dunciad.