His works, highly influential at the dawn of the Enlightenment, caused great controversy and challenged the Christian consensus of his time.
As Deputy Judge Advocate of the Fleet he had a large influence on the case law on piracy, such as his contributions to the 1693–1694 trial of John Golden.
[3] His timely pamphlet on the freedom of the press was hugely influential in the ending of the legal requirement that all publications be licensed before being printed.
The first of his two larger works, The Rights of the Christian Church asserted against the Romish and all other priests who claim an independent power over it, pt.
The book was regarded in its day as a forcible defence of the Erastian theory of the supremacy of the state over the Church, and at once provoked criticism and abuse.
After several attempts to proscribe the work had failed, a case against the author, publisher and printer succeeded on 14 December 1707, and another against a bookseller for selling a copy the next day.
In Christianity as Old as the Creation, Tindal articulates many prominent facets of deism that have continued to characterize that belief through subsequent centuries unto the present day: