There were in this century a large number of writers in England and throughout Europe, who, taking the Bible as a starting-point and limitation for their philosophy, broached wonderful theories as to creation, etc., in which reason and revelation were sought to be made harmonious. Enfield, a most orthodox writer, in his “History of Philosophy,” says: “Who does not perceive, from the particulars which have been related concerning these Scriptural philosophers, that their labors, however well intended, have been of little benefit to philosophy? Their fundamental error has consisted in supposing that the sacred Scriptures were intended, not only to instruct men in all things necessary to their salvation, but to teach the true principles of physical and metaphysical science.” How pregnant the admission that revelation and science cannot be expected to accord—an admission which in truth declares that in all philosophical research it its necessary to go beyond the Bible, if not to go against it—an admission which involves the declaration, that so long as men are bound by the letter of the Bible, so long all philosophical progress is impossible. In this century the English Church lost much of the political power it had hitherto wielded. It was in 1625, that William, Bishop of Lincoln, was dismissed from the office of Lord Keeper, and since his day no ecclesiastic has held the great seal of England, and to-day who even in the Church itself would dream of trying to make a bishop Lord Chancellor? The church lost ground in the conflict with Charles; this it might perhaps have recovered, but it suffered irretrievable loss of prestige in its struggle with William. Chapter IV. The Eighteenth Century