Many are led either by pride, dislike, or rivalry to the conviction that they can profit enough from private reading and meditation; hence they despise public assemblies and deem preaching superfluous. But, since they do their utmost to sever or break the sacred bond of unity, no one escapes the just penalty of this unholy separation without bewitching himself with pestilent errors and foulest delusions.
-- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.i.5 quotes in Hugh T. Kerr, ed., Calvin's Institutes: A New Compend, 132.