there is the name of their king.  Will you rebel against the king? is a word that shakes the world.  Well then, turn these things about for an argument to the matter in hand, and let the name of God, seeing he is wiser and better and of more glory and beauty than kings, beget in thy heart a beauty in all things that are commanded thee of God.  And indeed, if thou do not in this act thus, thou wilt stumble at some of thy duty and work thou hast to do; for some of the commands of God are in themselves so mean and low, that take away from them the name of God and thou wilt do as Naaman the Syrian, despise instead of obeying.  What is there in the Lord’s supper, in baptism, yea, in preaching the word and prayer, were they not the appointments of God?  His name being entailed to them makes them every one glorious and beautiful.  Wherefore no marvel if he that looks upon them without their title-page, goeth away in a rage like Naaman, preferring others before them.  “What is Jordan?  Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters in Israel?  May I not wash in them and be clean?” saith he.  This was because he remembered not that the name of God was in the command.  Israel’s trumpets of rams’-horns, and Isaiah’s walking naked, and Ezekiel’s wars against a tile, would doubtless have been ignoble acts, but that the name of God was that which gave them reverence, power, glory, and beauty.  Set therefore the name of God and “thus saith the Lord” against all reasonings, defamings, and reproaches that either by the world or thy own heart thou findest to arise against thy duty; and let his name and authority alone be a sufficient argument with thee, to hehold the beauty that he hath put upon all his ways, and to inquire in his temple.

Christians should so manage their time and the work that God hath appointed them to do for his name in this world, that they may not have part thereof to do when they should be departing this world; because, if they do not, dying will be a hard work with them, especially if God awakeneth them about their neglect of their duty.  The way of God with his people is to visit their sins in this life; and the worst time for thee to be visited by them is when thy life is smitten down as it were to the dust of death, even when all natural infirmities break in like a flood upon thee-sickness, fainting, pains, wearisomeness, and the like:  now, I say, to be charged also with the neglect of duty when in no capacity to do it-yea, when perhaps so feeble, as scarce able to abide to hear thy dearest friend in this life speak to thee-will not this make dying hard? yea, when thou shalt seem both in thine own eyes and also in the eyes of others, to fall short of the kingdom of heaven for this and the other transgressions; will not this make dying hard?  David found it hard when he cried, “O spare me a little, that I may recover strength, before I go hence and be no more.”  David at this time was chastened for some iniquity, yea, brought