CHRISTIANITY AS OLD AS THE CREATION; OR, THE GOSPEL, A REPUBLICATION OF THE RELIGION OF NATURE.

8vo. 4.25 x 6.25 inches. viii + 396 pp. Bound in original calf with recent paper label on spine. Extremities a little worn but otherwise a good copy. Early inscription at top of title. Decorated by title page and head and tailpiece vignettes. Anonymously published but known to be the work of Matthew Tindal (1653?-1733), who became notorious as a religious controversialist. A revision of the first, quarto edition, of 1730, ESTC states that the imprint is false and it was probably printed in the Netherlands. Tindal, who later became notorious as a freethinker, converted to Catholicism while at Oxford but later conveniently returned to the Church of England just in time for the Revolution of 1688. He had now qualified as a lawyer and attacked Jacobites on behalf of William III's government. In religion he turned away from the Church and the powers claimed by the clergy of any denomination. His move towards deism, rationalism and natural religion is reflected in his many writing of which this is a late example. It provoked more than thirty published replies with titles like Christianity is not as old as the Creation. Tindal intended this title to be Part I of a wider work but apparently at the time of his death, only thirty pages of Part II had been written. THEOLOGY/HISTORY CHURCH HISTORY THEOLOGY- CHRISTIAN 18TH CENTURY THEOLOGY/HISTORY.…