but all together, before God; and therefore it is ordered that even in very small parishes, where “there are not more than twenty persons in the parish of discretion to receive the communion, yet there shall be no communion, except four, or three at the least, out of these twenty communicate together with the priest.”  Nay, even in the Communion of the Sick, under circumstances which seem to make religion particularly an individual matter between Christ and our own single selves; when the expected approach of death seems to separate, in the most marked manner, according to human judgment, him who is going hence from his brethren still in the world; even then it is ordered that two other persons, at the least, shall communicate along with the sick man and the minister.  Nor is this ever relaxed except in times of pestilence; when it is provided, that if no other person can be persuaded to join from their fear of infection, then, and then only upon special request of the diseased, the minister may alone communicate with them.  So faithfully does our Church adhere to this true Christian notion, that at the Lord’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