3. For comfort and deliverance in afflictions. We should pity the distressed chiu'ch, as before ; that God would redeem them out of all their troubles. Every true member of the church hath life from Christ ; and that life giveth feeling, and that feeling aftection and sympathy to rejoice and mourn. They that mourn for Zion rejoice with her : Isa. Ixvi. 10, ' Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, all ye that love her ; rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn for her.'
4. For the furniture of the church, a supply of all good, internal and external. .
[1.] Internal. That God would bless them with ordinances, enrich them with graces, preserve truth and unity, and continue his presence with them: his ordinances, that they may enjoy them in purity, that the word, seals, and censures may be rightly administered till the Lord come. These are things pertaining to the kingdom of God, concerning which Christ spake to the disciples : Acts i. 3. These are to be kept till Christ's appearing : 1 Tim. vi. 14. It is an honour to God, and of great profit to the church, and a rejoicing to God's people, to see them pure and unmixed : ' Though absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in the spirit, joying and lieholding your order,' Col. ii. 5. And then that God would enrich them with his presence : Mat. xxviii. 20, ' Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.' It is God that giveth the increase : ' Paul may plant, and ApoUos water ; but God giveth the increase,' 1 Cor. iii. 6 — for convic- tion, conversion, confirmation. It was not the ark, nor mercy-seat covered with cherubims, but the answer from between the cherubims, given immediately by God, that manifested his presence. It is not the sound of the gospel, or outward ministry, but the work of his Spirit: Ps. Ixxxiv. 2, ' My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord ; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.' And
110 AX EXPOSITION OF [MaT. VI. 10.
Acts X. 44, it is said, ' The Holy Grhost fell on all tliem which heard the word.' And then for unity : Christ hath called us into a body, not only into a family, but into a body. It was Christ's own prayer : John xvii., ' Let them be one.' Disputes will not heal, but prayers may.
[2.] For external helps. We should pray that God would give us pastors after his own heart : Mat. ix. 38, ' Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.' Men that will discharge their duty with all faithfulness, men whose hearts are set to the building up of Christ's kingdom, labourers. And then for schools of learning. A man that hath many orchards will also have seminaries of young plants to maintain them. Schools are seminaries, without which the church falleth to decay. And then for good magistrates, to patronise and protect God's people, and promote his work with them : Isa. xlix. 23, there is a promise, ' Kings shall be thy nursing-fathers, and their queens thy nursing-mothers,' &c. Kest from persecution is a great blessing: Acts ix. 31, 'Then had the churches rest, and were edified : and walking in the fear of God, and the comforts of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied.' It is a great mercy that the church hath any breathings. These are the things that we should pray for for Zion.
Thus much shall sufi&ce to be spoken of the kingdom of Christ in a public consideration, with respect, first, to the public visible adminis- tration of the kingdom of grace.
I come now to speak of the second, viz., the public and solemn administration of the kingdom of glory ; and for that I shall insist on that portion of scripture : Kev, xxii. 20, ' Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.'
Here you have — I. Christ's proclamation.
II. The church's acclamation in answer thereunto. I. Christ's proclamation : ' Surely I come quickly.' Where take notice of two things : —
1. His asseveration : Surely.
2. His assertion : I come quickly.
1. His asseveration : Surely. It is a certain truth, though we do not so easily receive it. All notable truths, about which there is the greatest suspicion in the heart of the creature, you will find them thus averred in scripture ; as Isa. liii. 4, ' Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.' The dying of the Son of God is so mysterious that the Holy Ghost propounds it with a note of averment, Surely; that is, how unlikely soever it seems, yet this is a certain truth. So here the coming of Christ is a thing so future,^ so little regarded by epicures and atheists, that it is propounded with a like note of averment, ' Surely I come quickly.' Herein secretly is our unbelief taxed, and also our confidence engaged.
2. You have his assertion: / come quicldy. Let me explain what is meant by the coming of Christ. There is a twofold coming of Christ — a personal, and a virtual. Some think that the virtual coming is here meant, — his coming in the efficacy of his Spirit, or m the power of his providence, to accomplish those predictions. Here are many things prophesied of, and behold, ' I come quickly;' you shall find