shall dare to make mankind the worse, whether in body or soul or
mind.

But David prays God to kill his enemies. No doubt he does.
Probably they deserved to be killed. He does not ask, you will
always remember, if you be worthy of the name of critical students
of the Bible--he does not ask, as did the mediaeval monks, that his
enemies should go to endless torments after they died. True or
false, that is a more modern notion--and if it be applied to the
Psalms, an interpolation--of which David knew nothing. He asks
simply that the men may die. Probably he knew his own business
best, and the men deserved to die; to be killed either by God or by
man, as do too many in all ages.

If we take the Bible as it stands (and we have no right to do
otherwise), these men were trying to kill David. He could not, and
upon a point of honour, would not kill them himself. But he
believed, and rightly, that God can punish the offender whom man
cannot touch, and that He will, and does punish them. And if he
calls on God to execute justice and judgment upon these men, he only
calls on God to do what God is doing continually on the face of the
whole earth. In fact, God does punish here, in this life. He does
not, as false preachers say, give over this life to impunity, and
this world to the devil, and only resume the reins of moral
government and the right of retribution when men die and go into the
next world. Here, in this life, he punishes sin; slowly, but
surely, God punishes. And if any of you doubt my words, you have
only to commit sin, and then see whether your sin will find you out.

The whole question turns on this, Are we to believe in a living God,