TINDAL, MATTHEW

The rights of the Christian church asserted, against the Romish and all other priests who claim an independent power over it. With a preface concerning the government of the Church of England, as by law establish'd. Part I [all published]

London, 1706. First edition, 8vo, pp. xc, 416, [20]; recent half green morocco over marbled boards; gilt lettered direct on spine; new endpapers have offset onto verso of the last leaf and the title-p., and the gilding on the spine is a little unsightly; all else very good and sound. "By far the most contentious of his writings appeared in 1706: The rights of the Christian church asserted. The enemy he identified was at least as much high- churchmanship as it was Roman Catholicism, and he adopted the apparently moderate tones of a supporter of an Anglican via media in a defense of the Reformation which actually had profound implications for all styles of churchmanship. He opposed the claims for two independent powers subsisting in the same society, the one ecclesiastical, the other magisterial, condemning ‘the Spiritual Babylon’ promoted by high-church contenders for such a separation. He argued that it was in the interests of the clergy to complicate religion, thereby making themselves indispensable in the religious lives of the people: their powers made the Protestant call for further reformation impossible, and the interests of their church were declared to be incompatible with those of true religion. ‘From this Conduct of the High-flown Clergy’, he concluded, ‘some have taken the Liberty to compare a High-Church Priest in Politicks to a Monkey in a Glass-shop, where as he can do no good, so he never fails of doing Mischief enough’. He saw in this attitude of clerics a means to defend himself, noting of it that ‘nothing sooner [gives] a Man the Character of an Atheist than being an Enemy to Priestcraft’" (DNB).

-- Rulon-Miller Books ABAA/ILAB

Book number: 31289

Keywords: Theology English Literature