 During the 17th and early 18th centuries British philosophy gave rise to two powerful but conflicting philosophical outlooks. On one hand, this era has been described as “the golden period of English theology” (Stephen 1962, 66) because of the deepening alliance between philosophy and theology. It was, in particular, a major concern of a number of divines at this time to show that basic Christian theology could be provided with a rational defence — one that would ward off all threat of scepticism and atheism. Among the leading representatives of this tradition were Henry More, Ralph Cudworth,  John Locke,  Samuel Clarke,  George Berkeley  and Joseph Butler. (More and Cudworth were both  Cambridge Platonists.)  On the other hand, in opposition to this Christian tradition, there existed a sceptical tradition of which the greatest representative was  Thomas Hobbes.  Closely aligned with Hobbes was the work of Benedict Spinoza, whose Theological-Political Treatise (1670) and Ethics (1677) pursued a number of perceived Hobbesean themes in a more explicit and radical fashion, including anti-clericalism, biblical criticism, scepticism about miracles, materialism and necessitarianism (see Israel 2001). Almost all the defenders of basic Christian theology during this period had their arguments targeted against the “atheistic” doctrines of Hobbes and Spinoza.