Westminster Sermons / with a Preface

by Charles Kingsley

Are there none now, too, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword? Such use the pen now, rather than the tongue: but they know, as well as those whom David met, how to handle the spears and arrows of slander, and the sharp sword of insult. Are there none left, who set nets for their neighbours’ feet, by gambling, swindling, puffing, by tricks of trade and tricks of party?—none who, like the Scribes of old, try to entangle men in their talk, and make them offenders for a word; and who, like David’s enemies, fall now and then into the very pit which they have digged, and ruin themselves in trying to ruin others?

My friends, such men will be, as long as there is sin upon the earth. Their weapons are very different now from what they were in David’s time: but their hearts are the same as they were then. “The works of the flesh they do, which are manifest;” and a very ugly list they make; as all who read St Paul’s Epistles know full well.

But such men have their wages. God is merciful in this; that He rewards every man according to his work. And He is merciful to the whole human race, in rewarding such men according to their work. To the flesh they sow, and of the flesh they shall reap corruption. Of old it was written—“The wages of sin

are death;” and that, like all God’s words, is a Gospel and good news to poor human beings. For if the wages of sin were not death, what end could there be to sin, and therefore to misery?

But while such men exist, how shall a man escape them? How shall he defend himself from them? Not by craft and falsehood, not by angry replies, not by fighting them with their own weapons. The honest man is no match for them with those. The man who has a conscience is no match for the man who has none. The man who has no conscience does what he wills; everything is fair to him in war; and there—in his unscrupulousness—lies his evil strength. The man who has a conscience dares not do what he likes. His scruples—in plain words, his fear of God—hamper him, and put him at a disadvantage, which will always defeat him, as often as he borrows the devil’s tools to do God’s work withal.

He must give up those weapons, as David threw off Saul’s armour, when he went to fight the giant. It was strong enough, doubt not: but he could not go in it, he said; he was not accustomed to it. He would take simpler weapons, to which he was accustomed; and fight his battle with them, trusting not in armour, but in the name of the living God.

In the name of the living God. That is the only sure weapon, and the only sure defence. In that David trusted, when he went to fight the giant. In that he trusted, when he was hid in the cave. And because he trusted in God, he prayed to God. He spoke to

God. Remember that, and understand how much it means. David, the simple yeoman’s son, the outlaw, the wanderer, despised and rejected by men, one who was no scholar either, who very probably could neither read nor write, and knew neither sciences nor arts, save how to play, in some simple way, upon his harp—this man found out that, however oppressed, miserable, ignorant he was in many respects, he had a right to speak face to face with the Almighty and Infinite God, who had made heaven and earth. He found out that that great God cared for him, protected him, and would be true to him, if only he would be true to God and to himself. What a discovery was that! Worth all the wealth and power, ay, worth all the learning and science in the world.—To have found the pearl of great price, the secret of all secrets; I, David, may speak to God.

Ah, my friends, consider the meaning of that. Consider it, I say. For when that great thought has once flashed across a man’s mind, he is a new creature thenceforth. He need speak to no father-confessor or director; to no saints or angels; to no sages or philosophers. For he can speak to God Himself, and he need speak to no one else. Nay, at times he dare speak to no one else. If he can tell his story to God, why tell it to any of God’s creatures?

He is in the presence of God Himself, God his Father, God his Saviour, God his Comforter; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God is listening to him. To God he can tell all his sorrows, all his wrongs, all his doubts, all his sins, all his weaknesses, as David told his;