5.  It was while all the rest of the House Beautiful were supping on lamb and wine, and while there was such music in the House that made Mercy exclaim over it with wonder—­it was at the smell of the supper and at the sound of the psalmody that Matthew’s gripes seized upon him worse than ever.  All the time the others sat late into the night Matthew lay on the rack pulled to pieces.  After William Law’s death at King’s Cliffe, his executors found among his most secret papers a prayer he had composed for his own alone use on a certain communion day when he was self-debarred from the Lord’s table.  I do not know for certain just what fruit the young non-juror had stolen out of Beelzebub’s orchard before that communion season; but I can see that he was in poor Matthew’s exact experience that communion night,—­literally torn to pieces with agonies of conscience while all his fellow-worshippers were at the table of the Lord.  While the psalms and hymns are being sung at the supper-table, lay your ear to Law’s closet door.  “Whilst all Thy faithful servants are on this day offering to Thee the comfortable sacrifice of the body and the blood of Christ, and feasting at that holy table which Thou hast ordained for the refreshment, joy, and comfort of their souls, I, unhappy wretch, full of guilt, am justly denied any share of these comforts that are common to the Christian world.  O my God, I am an unclean worm, a dead dog, a stinking carcass, justly removed from that society of saints who this day kneel about Thine altar.  But, oh! suffer me to look toward Thy holy Sanctuary; suffer my soul again to be in the place where Thine honour dwelleth.  Reject not the sacrifice of a broken heart, and do Thou be with me in secret, though I am not fit to appear in Thy public worship.  Lord, if Thou wilt Thou canst make me clean.  Lord, speak but the word, and Thy servant shall be healed.”  It is the fruit of Beelzebub’s orchard.  Many have died thereof.

6.  “Pray, sir, make me up twelve boxes of them; for if I can get these, I will never take other physic.”  “These same pills,” he replied, “are good also to prevent diseases as well as to cure when one is sick.  But, good woman, thou must take these pills no other way but as I have prescribed; for if you do, they will do no good.”  I have taken one illustration from William Law’s life; I shall take another from that world of such illustrations and so close.  “O God, let me never see such another day as this.  Let the dreadful punishment of this day never be out of my mind.”  And it never was.  For, after that day in hell, Law never laid down his head on his pillow that he did not seem to remember that dreadful day.  William Law would have satisfied Dr. Skill for a convalescent.  For he never felt that he had any right to touch the body and blood of Christ, either at communion times, or a thousand times every day, till he had again got ready his heart of true repentance.  My brethren,