But if the state of things were more favourable to Chriftians, and they were as much encourag❜d as they are generally opprefs'd, yet this would fall very short of that Kingdom which is promis'd them. Their virtue cannot have a fufficient reward in this World, when their greatest merit is to expect none in it; and the pleasures of all kinds here must be a lean recompence to those who can receive no fatisfaction from them, but profefs to have crucify'd the flesh, with the affections and lufts.

II.

Befides, not only those, who are still here, have not yet their reward, but even those, who are already departed hence in the faith of Christ, have probably the greatest part of their enjoyment from the full affurance of their hope, They are not to receive their final confummation in blifs till the great day of account; and the fouls under the altar are order'd to Rev. vi, reft yet a little while, till their fellow fer-. vants and brethren, that are to be flain as they, be accomplish'd. They who are faid to have been flain for the Word of God, and the Teftimony they bore, (and fure none can vi. 9. have a better title to the prefent poffeffion of Happiness than they,) are not, without us, to be made perfect; and those who are call'd at the fixth, the ninth, and the eleventh hour,

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are yet to receive their wages at once. The intermediate time till the day of Judgment is to the Saints on Earth the ftate of tryal, and to those above the state of hope; and the communion between them (which we profess by our Creed) obliges them to extend their wishes to each other; fo that as they charitably pray for our perfeverance, we likewife pray for their confummation.

The completion of this Kingdom therefore is not to be till the second coming of our Saviour with Power and great Glory: for which reafon he is faid to come then in his Kingdom; aud this very Judgment is call'd by Luke ix. St. Luke the Kingdom of God. It is worthy of observation, that St. Matthew in the description of this Kingdom calls him frequentMatt.xxv. ly the King, which he doth not in any other place; and the reward that is there bestow'd upon his faithful fervants, is call'd the Kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the World.

As the Jews then do particularly apply. this petition to the coming of the Messiah, fo do we Chriftians; but then we mean that coming, in which he shall appear the fecond time without fin unto falvation: we pray herein first for the finishing, and then for the reward of our labours; and according to the

words

words of our Burying office, that God would in his due time accomplish his Elect, and haften his Kingdom.·

These then are the several senses in which God's Kingdom is not yet come, and for which our Saviour here teaches us to pray. We pray that both Jew and Gentile may come to the knowledge of the truth; and that after they have fo known Christ, they may confefs him by (the most unexceptionable teftimony) the holiness of their lives: and then in the last place, that those who have so known and practis'd, may speedily be put in poffeffion of the rewards which the Lord the righteous Judge will give to all those that love his appearance. In fhort, by praying that God's Kingdom may come, we wish for the increase, the unity and perfeverance of his Church on Earth, and the final completion and triumphs of it in Heaven.

I come in the third place to fhew the practical uses which arife from this Prayer.

First, From praying that God's Kingdom may come, we may affuredly expect that in due time it certainly will come.

Our own wishes are far from being the standard of truth, and we may, when di-. rected by our own fallible judgments, defire many things, which are both unnecessary and

uncertain

uncertain. But as Chrift, the eternal Word, hath taught us to pray for this Kingdom, he hath in doing fo (tho' there were no other proofs of it) given us a tolerable assurance that it will come. The Saviour of the World cannot be fuppos'd to delude his followers with fruitless and chimerical wishes, but all the defires, to which he directs them, must be both reasonable in their principle, and encouraging in their expectation. The hope, that the Church hereafter will be larger in its extent, and more perfect in its constitution, and thereby more resembling our Saviour's Kingdom, is both agreeable to Truth and ferviceable to Religion. How little will it appear to have deferv'd the care of God, and to have justify'd the fufferings of his Son, if all things are to continue as they were from the beginning of the World; and this whole scene is to be fhut up with no greater honour, than as yet hath been done to Christianity?

As God's people the Jews travell'd out of a fevere Government through a barren wildernefs and many hard conflicts, into the promis'd Land; fo their sufferings and the event of them, represent the prefent condition and future hopes of the Church. The road to its enlargement and perfection feems to lie thro'

difficult

difficult and troublesom paths, and it is to grow by many steps not yet understood, to be that glorious Church, fuch as the Spouse of Christ fhould be, without spot or wrinkle.

Ephef. Y.

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19.

But befides, we have to juftify our expectations in this point a more fure word of Pro- 2 Pet. 1. phecy, to which if we take heed we do well, as to a light shining in a dark place. The greater part of the Prophets, especially the three last, are wholly spent in fetting forth a state of things, which hath not yet been in the truth of the letter, and of which therefore we have as much affurance as that God

is true. The promises of future peace and fpiritual perfection to the Church are fo numerous in the Prophets, that our Saviour found little reason to repeat them; he therefore check'd the forward and fanguin expectations of his Disciples, by letting them know the great diftrefs and perfecution, which were to come upon them before that time.

But that fuch hopes, tho' at great distance, yet might not appear wholly foreign to his followers, he hath been pleas'd to set forth the future fufferings and triumphs of the Faithful in the book of the Revelations: which book, tho' yet feal'd up, and abus'd by the prefumptuous curiofity of fome, who pretend from thence to determine the times and feaG

fons