's Supper we are not to communicate with Christ
alone, but with him in and together with our brethren; so that I was
justified in regarding the Holy Communion as one of those helps and
blessings which we still derive from the Christian Church--from Christ's
mystical body.

It is the natural process of all false and corrupt religions, on the
contrary, to destroy this notion of Christ's Church, and to lead away
our thoughts from our brethren in matters of religion, and to fix them
merely upon God as known to us through a priest. The great evil in this
is, (if there is any one evil greater than another in a system so wholly
made up of falsehood, and so leading to all wickedness; but, at any
rate, one great evil of it is,) that whereas the greatest part of all
our lives is engaged in our relations towards our brethren, that there
lie most of our temptations to evil, as well as of our opportunities of
good, if our brethren do not form an essential part of our religions
views, it follows, and always has followed, that our behaviour and
feelings towards them are guided by views and principles not religious;
and that by this fatal separation of what God has joined together, our
worship and religious services become superstitious, while our life and
actions become worldly, in the bad sense of the term, low principled,
and profane.

If this is not so clear when put into a general form, it will be plain
enough when I show it in that particular example which we are concerned
with here. Nowhere, I believe, is the temptation stronger to lose sight
of one another in our religious exercises, and especially in our
Communion. Our serious thoughts in turning to God, turn away almost
instinctively from our companions about us. Practically, as far as the
heart is concerned, we are a great deal too apt to go to the Lord's
table each alone. But consider how much we lose by this. We are
necessarily in constant relations with one another; some of those
relations are formal, others are trivial; we connect each other every
day with a great many thoughts, I do not say of unkindness, but yet of
that indifferent character which is no hindrance to any unkindness when
the temptation to it happens to arise. This must always be the case in
life; business, neighbourhood, pleasure,--the occasions of most of our
intercourse with one another,--have in them nothing solemn or softening:
they have in themselves but little tendency to lead us to the love of
o