[ 949] A wicked life hath usually a wicked end.
THere is a story of one,* 1.1 that being often reproved for his ungodly and vitious life, and exhorted to repentance, would still answer, That it was but saying three words at his death, and he was sure to be saved; perhaps the three words he meant, were Miserere meî Deus, Lord have mercy upon me. But one day riding over a bridge, his horse stumbled, and both were falling in∣to the River,* 1.2 and in the article of that precipitation, he onely cryed, Capiat omnia di∣abolus, Horse and man and all to the devill: Three words he had, but not such as he should have had; he had been so familiar with the devill all his life, that he thinks of none else at his death. Thus it is, that usually a wicked life, hath a wicked end: He that travells the way of hell all his life-time, it is impossible in the end of his journey, he should arrive at heaven. A worldly man dies, rather thinking of his gold than his God: some die jeering, some raging, some in one distemper, some in ano∣ther. Why? They lived so, and so they die. But the godly man is full of comfort in his death, because he was full of heaven in his life.