4. Fourthly, {174d} It is said in the Book of Psalms, concerning the wicked, There is no bands in their death, but their strength is firm. By no bands, he means no troubles, no gracious chastisements, no such corrections for sin as fall to be the Lot of Gods people for theirs; yea, that many times falls to be theirs, at the time of their death. Therefore he adds concerning the wicked, They are not troubled (then) like other men, neither are they plagued like other men; but go as securely out of the world, as if they had never sinned against God, and put their own souls into danger of damnation. There is no band in their death. They seem to go unbound, and set at liberty, out of this world, though they have lived notoriously wicked all their dayes in it. The Prisoner that is to dye at the Gallows for his wickedness, must first have his Irons knock’t off his legs; so he seems to goe most at liberty, when indeed he is going to be executed for his transgressions. Wicked men also have no bands in their death, they seem to be more at liberty when they are even at the Wind-up of their sinfull life, than at any time besides. Hence you shall have them boast of their Faith and Hope in Gods Mercy, when they lye upon their death-bed; yea, you shall have them speak as confidently of their salvation, as if they had served God all their dayes: when the truth is, the bottom of this their boasting is, because they have no bands in their death. Their sin and base life comes not into their mind to correct them, and bring them to repentance; but presumptuous thoughts, and an hope and faith of the Spiders (the Devils) making, possesseth their soul, to their own eternal undoing. {175a} Hence wicked mens hope, is said to dye, not before, but with them; they give up the Ghost together. And thus did Mr. Badman. His sins and his hope went with him to the Gate, but there his hope left him, because it dyed there; but his sins went in with him, to be a worm to gnaw him in his conscience for ever and ever.