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he must needs be such, as one of the most learned, and pious, and experienced of modern divines. He acknowledges the profound truth at the heart of all the efforts that have been put forth, as in Christendom generally, so especially in Lutheranism. Some of the noblest intellects and warmest hearts, from Melanchthon and Leibnitz down to the Pietists and Prussian rulers, have longed for and hastened towards the ideal unity which the Christian instinct yearns for. But he is honest enough, and bold enough, to decline any Union save in these three respects, and with these three reservations.

First: the Church of Christ, by a historical necessity which God has not prevented, exists only in Confessional Churches. The evil of the divisions cannot be done away. Believing in one holy Apostolic and Catholic Church, the lover of his creed must look beyond his own Confession while he lives by it. "Christianity has not its standard in Lutheranism, but Lutheranism in Christianity. He who so thinks will in all who have put on Christ in baptism recognise members of the body of Christ." Secondly: while holding firmly the great principles of the Augsburg Confession, and recognising Lutheranism as the guardian of evangelical truth, the Confession should be held fast under the condition of loyalty to the Scripture, and with perfect readiness to admit every modification that the Holy Spirit may introduce through the testimony of other Churches. "We must protest against the unity to which truth is sacrificed. We dare not say that there is room for opposite convictions on such and such points. We cannot say yea and nay at one and the same time. We must have no compromise in truth. But, while thus firm, we must look gently around us upon others. We must be mindful of the cross which the Lord has placed upon us. Distinguished by our doctrinal views, which are to us important, yet, in a time when unbelief has so frightful a power, we must rejoice in every measure of accordance with the Reformed and the Evangelical among the Unionists. We must learn from the theology of all Confessions, and be glad that there is a unity in the theological science that labours after truth, if not in doctrine itself." Thirdly: the best expressions of their unity is found by Lutheran and the Reformed in free combinations for common Protestant ends. "Among these may be classed the Bible Societies, the Tract Societies, and the Gustav-Adolf-Verein, in which Lutherans, and Reformed, and United, are combined to assist and uphold the scattered and exhausted congregations of their several faiths." The author does not put much confidence in the

common labours of the several communions for Home Missions. These have never been found successful. There are, however, enterprises enough in which the Christian communions can show that they are one in devotion to the common Head of the Church. But woe to those who throw a stumblingblock in the way of the common communion of Christians at the Table of the Lord. Thus, to sum up all in words which are almost as applicable in England as in Germany:—“ The growth of union lies, first, in the sentiment which springs from true Christianity, and sees, in all members and Churches of all Confessions, members and parts of the one Church of Christ; secondly, in a doctrinal position which, while faithful to the Confession, is also always progressive in its struggle after truth, and therefore believes and hopes in the common efforts of others in the same direction; and, thirdly, in free confederations for the common prosecution of the common interests of the Kingdom of Christ."

It would be wrong to lay down this clear and interesting volume without adverting to its high value as an exhibition of Lutheran doctrine. Dr. Kahnis is a lineal descendant, and a worthy one, of the Lutheran dogmatists who, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, carried systematic theology to a point never surpassed. We do not hold many of his views, as these pages have shown; but we admire his treatment of some very important branches of theological science, not excepting the well-known exhibition of the internal relations of the Holy Trinity. There is no book that gives in the same compass so full and luminous a view of the fundamentals of Lutheranism. These we have not touched upon now, having eliminated from the volume all that did not bear upon the question of the union of the Protestant Churches in Germany.

One word in conclusion. We have lately given a sketch of another kind of union: the combination of all Protestants in Germany to resist Confessions and creeds and positive faiths of every kind. Those who read that paper will find an interest in this one. And it will, doubtless, occur to them, as it occurs to us, that it were far better to promote the true Union of the Confessions somewhat more directly than Dr. Kahnis contents himself with doing. It were better to make many sacrifices, rather than perpetuate a really needless division of creeds and communions. In the interest of the Church of Christ in Germany-which is of profound importance for the world-we cannot but close by wishing God's blessing on the true Protestant Union in the consolidated Empire.

London: Civic and Social.

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ART. VI.-1. London: its Celebrated Characters and Remarkable Places. By J. H. JESSE. Three Vols. 8vo. London. 1871.

2. London and Westminster, City and Suburb: Strange Events, Characteristics and Changes of Metropolitan Life. By JOHN TIMBS. Two Vols. 8vo. London. 1868.

3. Curiosities of London. By JOHN TIMBS. London. 1869. 4. Ancient Meeting Houses; or, Memorial Pictures of Nonconformity in Old London. By G. H. PIKE. London. 1870.

5. Commentaries on the History, Constitution, and Chartered Franchises of the City of London. By GEORGE NORTON. Third Edition. London. 1869.

6. Report of the Select Committee on the Municipal Government of the Metropolis. London. 1867.

7. Report of the Commission on the Municipal Government of the City of New York. New York. 1867.

8. Further Report as to the Condition of the Industrial Classes, and the Purchase Power of Money in Foreign Countries. London. 1871.

We have always thought it strange that, while writers of literary eminence and fame have taken pleasure in describing the architectural grandeur and dazzling beauty of modern Paris, the gradual development of her manufacturing industry, and her progress in the realms of art and science, the history of the City of London should have yet to be written. Every schoolboy knows who founded the City of the Seven Hills, who built the temples and walls of Athens, and who restored Carthage; but we doubt whether one in fifty could give an intelligible sketch of the early history of our great metropolis, or could specify the causes of its unprecedented prosperity and unparalleled growth. The fault lies at the door of the historians, who have possessed the ability, but lacked the will to accomplish the work. Hence the history of London has fallen into the hands of tedious antiquarians and dry topographers; and, it is almost needless to say, has suffered in consequence. Mr. Timbs's books are fair specimens of the extraordinary faculty which the civic antiquarians appear to possess of portraying and blending events trivial

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and important, grave and gay, ancient and modern, mythical and true, without the slightest regard for the harmony of facts, or the faintest notion of the laws of historical perspective. Photographic sketches, popular stories, romantic legends, disjointed fragments collected together without any appearance of chronological order, do not constitute a history. Several writers have, it is true, attempted to traverse the bridge connecting the present with the past history of the City, and two or three have for a time kept up a kind of hobbling march; but, like the crowd, whom Mirza, in his vision on the heights of Bagdad, saw thronging the bridge which crossed the valley below, they have one after another fallen, being "quite tired and spent with so long a walk." Let us hope that, as in Addison's famous narrative, there appeared to the prophet a genius who bade him look no more on man in the first stage of his existence, so the Muse of History may ere long discover to us one of her sons endowed with the vigour, and power, and style, which so great a subject, of right, demands. We should be doing Mr. Norton an injustice were we not at once to except him from either of the unenviable categories to which we have made reference above. His work is neither tedious nor dull; indeed, as far as we are aware, it is the only intelligent exposition of recent date of the polity, the chartered franchises, and the privileges of the City of London. Mr. Norton does not deserve, however, an altogether unqualified praise. The field of inquiry is far too extensive to be satisfactorily surveyed from so limited a point of view; and, passing from the form to the substance of the work, we have noticed two or three passages which would become rather the lips of a special pleader than the pen of one who claims the position of a constitutional historian.

It is not our intention to attempt to supply the deficiencies to which we have called attention, or even to enter upon a task which it would require several bulky volumes successfully to achieve. To describe and discuss the progress of events which found the City of London successively a British trading post, a Roman fortress, the headquarters of the Anglo-Saxon court, the centre of Norman feudalism, and in an age of mediæval darkness and superstition the champion of religious truth and the nursery of political freedom; to tell the illustrious roll of citizens-statesmen, soldiers, merchants, poets, painters, and philanthropists-who made the City what it is, and were nurtured within its walls; to describe the regal magnificence of the civic magistrates, the splendour of the civic companies, and the constitution of the

The Seventeenth Century.

163

ancient civic army; to refer to the style of the more aristocratic and public buildings, or to dwell upon the homes and habits of the common people, their moral victories, their political defeats-all this would take up more space than a reviewer is able to afford. Nor shall we linger to portray the successive revolutions which these events necessarily created in the social and moral condition of the people. It would be a difficult task to speak in truthful, yet temperate language of the morality of the citizens of London towards the close of the seventeenth century. For half a century freedom had been degenerating into license; the apparent straightlacedness of the salons of good society stood forth in striking contrast to the reckless frivolity out of doors; the distinctions between innocence and vice were being rapidly lost sight of; ordinary conversation too often took a rough and licentious turn; there was something fundamentally odious in the vacillating and double-dealing character of the great statesmen of the age; to a large multitude life was nothing more than a pageant, and they themselves merely the company of maskers. Dark as the picture seems, it had a bright side. There was a bold and independent section of the community who still cherished the stern tenets of the Protector. They were actuated by a strong and earnest feeling of religion, and were as yet unsullied by the miserable hypocrisy of fashionably society. Rough and illiterate they doubtless were; but their thoughts were fashioned after one standard, their minds were formed by one system of discipline, and they possessed the advantage which men of one book will invariably enjoy. Their headquarters were close to the seat of civic government, and it is no exaggeration to say that often in the hour of need they found the Corporation of the City their friend, patron, and mainstay.

Commercially the capital was making steady progress. The energy and bustling activity of her citizens had enabled her to advance with rapid strides; the trade of Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Antwerp was slowly passing to the Thames; every home and foreign rival was being outstripped, so that, on the accession of George the Third, the City of London was in a position to control the European markets. A century before, Antwerp was the great commercial city of the West. The annual exportation of English cloth was valued at more than a million sterling, and no less than fourfifths of the entire trade of the port was done in English produce. The insignificant position which London had hitherto occupied as a commercial centre was in no small

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