If that means anything, it means this--that rich
and poor alike draw life for their souls from the same well, not for
themselves only, not apart from each other, but all in common, all
together, because they are brothers, members of one family, as the
leaves are members of the same tree; that as the same bread and the
same wine are needed to nourish the bodies of all, the same spirit of
God is needed to nourish the souls of all; and that we cannot have
this spirit, except as members of a body, any more than a man's limb
can have life when it is cut off and parted from him. This is the
reason, and the only reason, why Protestant clergymen are forbidden,
thank God! to give the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, to any
one person singly. If a clergyman were to administer the Lord's
Supper, to himself in private, without any congregation to partake
with him, it would not be the Lord's Supper, it would be nothing, and
worse than nothing; it would be a sham and a mockery, and, I believe,
a sin. I do not believe that Christ would be present, that God's
Spirit would rest on that man. For our Lord says, that it is where
two or three are gathered together in His name, that He is in the
midst of them. And it was at a supper, at a feast, where all the
Apostles were met together, that our Lord divided the bread amongst
them, and told them to share the cup amongst themselves, just as a
sign that they were all members of one body--that the welfare of each
of them was bound up in the welfare of all the rest that God's
blessing did not rest upon each singly, but upon all together.
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