en moving in advance of public opinion.
When Stephen, sixty years afterwards, disputed with Cyprian and others
concerning the rebaptism of heretics, he was still endeavouring to work
out the same unity; and the bishop of Carthage found himself involved in
contradictions when he proceeded at once to assert his independence, and
to concede to the see of Peter the honour which, as he admitted, it
could legitimately challenge. [572:1]

The theory of Catholicism is based on principles thoroughly fallacious.
Assuming that visible unity is essential to the Church on earth, it
sanctions the startling inference that whoever is not connected with a
certain ecclesiastical society must be out of the pale of salvation. The
most grinding spiritual tyranny ever known has been erected on this
foundation. And yet how hollow is the whole system! It is no more
necessary that all the children of God in this world should belong to
the same visible Church than that all the children of men should be
connected with the same earthly monarchy. All believers are "one in
Christ;" they have all "one Lord, one faith, one baptism;" but "the
kingdom of God cometh not with observation," and the unity of the saints
on earth can be discerned only by the eye of Omniscience. They are all
sustained by the same living bread which cometh down from heaven, but
they may receive their spiritual provision as members of ten thousand
separated Churches. All who truly love the Saviour are united to Him by
a link which can never be broken; and no ecclesiastical barrier can
either exclude them from His presence here, or shut them out from His
fellowship hereafter. But a number of men might as well propose to
appropriate all the light of the sun or all the winds of heaven, as
attempt to form themselves into a privileged society with a monopoly of
the means of salvation.

The Church of Rome is understood to be the spiritual Babylon of the
Apocalypse, and yet one point of correspondence between the type and the
antitype seems to have been hitherto overlooked. The great city of
Babylon commenced with the erection of Babel, and the builders said--"Go
to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven,
and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of
the whole earth." [573:1] Civil unity was avowedly the end designed by
these architects. Amongst other purposes contemplated by the famous
tower, it appears to have been intended to