MATTHEW, a well-known English writer, was the son of the Rev. 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 LL.D. In the reign of James II he declared himself a Roman Catholic, but soon renounced that religion. After the revolution he published several pamphlets in favour of government, and the liberty of the press. His principal works are theological and ecclesiastical, but some of them are more connected with his character as a civilian. One of these is "An Essay concerning the Law of Nations and the Rights of Sovereigns." Another consists of "Discourses on the Obedience to the Supreme Powers, and the Duty of Subjects in all Revolutions." His "Rights of the Christian Church asserted," exposed him to a violent contest with the high church clergy; and his treatise entitled "Christianity as old as the Creation," published in 1730, made much noise, and was answered by several writers, particularly by Dr Conybeare, Dr Foster, and Dr Chapman. Its tendency was evidently deistical. Dr Tindal retained his fellowship till his death, which took place at London on the 10th of August 1733. He left in manuscript a second volume of his "Christianity as old as the Creation," the preface to which has been published.

NICHOLAS, the nephew of Dr Tindal, was born in 1657, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he took the degree of A.M. in 1713. He became a fellow of Trinity College, and obtained several pieces of preferment in the church. In 1738 he was appointed chaplain of Greenwich Hospital; and here he died on the 27th of June 1774, at the age of eighty-seven. He was the author or translator of several works, but is chiefly remembered for his translation and continuation of Rapin's History of England.