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THE BRITISH PULPIT.

THE KINGDOM OF GRACE IN THE HEART.

REV. HENRY BLUNT, A.M.

TRINITY CHURCH, CHELSEA, SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 1st, 1833.

"Thy kingdom come."-Matthew vi. 10.

THAT We may, when we utter these words, pray with the understanding, let us endeavour to ascertain the nature of the kingdom for which our Lord teaches his believing people so constantly to petition for.

First, then, we say, that the most obvious manner in which the Almighty manifests his kingdom and power on earth, is through the instrumentality of his Providence, by which he rules and over-rules all. There is nothing done, sin only excepted, of which God is not the doer-nothing established which he setteth not up-nothing destroyed which he throweth not down. As the Psalmist says, "He putteth down one and setteth up another;" and as he again asserts, "His kingdom ruleth over all." Thus, then, his providential kingdom cannot be the object for which we are instructed to pray; for this has already come; and from the hour when the Almighty said, “Let there be light,” even to the present moment, neither evil men, nor evil spirits, have had power to interrupt the blessed harmony of all the countless millions of that wonderful piece of heavenly mechanism-the providential kingdom of our God.

Neither is the kingdom here prayed for that imaginary subjugation of the world to the Lord Jesus Christ, in person, which taking its origin from Jewish fables and from the misinterpretations of prophecy, has misled the minds of men from the earliest heresy to the Millenarians of the present day.

The kingdom, then, to which our Lord, and his great forerunner John the Baptist, continually alluded, under the phrases "the kingdom of God," and "the kingdom of heaven," is undoubtedly the kingdom for which our Lord requires us unceasingly to petition, and this kingdom is well known to every attentive

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reader of Holy Writ, to mean the Gospel dispensation, in its largest and fullest acceptation: the spread of Gospel principles through every land-the triumph of Gospel grace in every heart. Observe this very distinctly stated in Luke xvii. 20, "When Jesus was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come," (they expecting a temporal reign and a temporal kingdom)" he answered them, and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, lo, there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you:" the Gospel kingdom is established in the midst of you; the kingdom of grace is erected in the heart of every one of my true followers. The kingdom of grace, then, is the first kingdom to which the heart of every sincere worshipper should turn when repeating the petition, "Thy kingdom come."

But even the kingdom of grace, universal and extensive as its object is, is not all that is prayed for in these words; there is yet another kingdom, if it be another, equally desirable, equally important, equally the object of every believer's most fervent prayer, most glowing anticipations, and this is the kingdom of future and everlasting glory. I say, if it is another, for these two kingdoms are united by so small an isthmus, that he who stands upon the extremest boundary of the kingdom of grace on earth, has almost already set his foot within the kingdom of glory in heaven. The kingdom of grace is in fact glory in its weak and feeble seed-time; the kingdom of glory is grace in its blessed and abundant harvest. The kingdom of grace is the morn, the daybreak of glory; the kingdom of glory is the bright shining of its meridian The kingdom of grace is glory militant; the kingdom of glory is grace triumphant. Blessed kingdom! so close, so indissoluble! None can ever pray for the one without praying for the other also; none shall ever enter the second who has not passed through the first: and, blessed be God, none shall ever effectually and really enter the first, and be ultimately excluded from the second. Who is there, then, that will not from his heart exclaim, " Thy kingdom come?" Who that does not desire it above all earthly things, to be the portion of himself, his family, and his friends, that we who are made partakers of his love may be, even while on earth, participators with them of the same grace, ripening with them for the same glory.

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Very delightful would it be to dwell in this discourse, on this great completion of the Christian's prayer; very encouraging to pourtray, feebly and darkly, though it might be, those blessed scenes of which some glimpses have been vouchsafed in the word of God, of days when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea; when one spirit shall pervade all hearts, and one worship, and one Lord, shall occupy all tongues. Still more delightful would it be to look beyond even that state of transient blessedness, to enter in imagination those courts from which the worshippers shall go no more out, and to see the Lord's kingdom established as an everlasting kingdom, his throne for ever set, the chorusses of heaven opened, and to hear from their ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of voices the unceasing hallelujah-" This God is our God for ever and ever."

But, brethren, the intention of our discourses is rather to edify than to delight, the great object of them being to reduce our daily prayer into our daily practice. To do this, we must descend from these high themes, and content ourselves with that view of the kingdom of grace, which while it excludes neither the millenial nor the heavenly kingdoms, has its first fulfilment in personal conversion, personal holiness, and personal meetness for the inheritance of the saints in

light. We proceed, then, with this view to examine what is implied by the existence of such a petition in the Christian's daily prayer-" Thy kingdom

come."

If we ask for bread, it surely implies that we are without it. If we ask a kingdom, it surely implies that we feel our need, and the need of all the children of men, for the setting up of this blessed kingdom. It is no objection to this view to say, that it must be partially established in our own hearts before we can have grace or strength enough to pray for it. It may be so; but where lives that true and sincere follower of Christ, who would not, who does not from his very soul desire more grace, more light, more knowledge, more love? And when he looks upon the darkened state, the sin and ignorance of the men around him, where is the true believer who does not feel that his petition is as yet almost entirely unanswered; that another kingdom is prevailing; that another king is ruling, who is leading by far the larger portion of mankind captive at his will-that kingdom to which the apostle so obviously alludes, when he says, "Giving thanks to the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son."

The petition before us, then, implies, that until this kingdom comes universally, the whole world lieth in wickedness, and is in bondage to God's arch enemy, the ruler of the kingdom of darkness. That, again, until this kingdom comes individually, every person born into the world is the bond slave of Satan, a resident and citizen of his accursed kingdom. You, my brethren, who have probably prayed every day for a long series of years, "Thy kingdom come," in one sense must feel that your petition has never yet been granted: but I would ask you, have you ever felt that it has in any sense been fulfilled? Have you ever felt any real anxiety that it should be? Have you ever devoted one hour in your whole life earnestly to gain, as regards your own soul, a fulfilment of this ten thousand times reiterated petition? If not, do you imagine this is prayer? Did you ever seek any worldly good so coldly, so indifferently, so perfectly careless whether it was denied or granted? And yet no earthly good you ever sought approached this invaluable boon. Let us, then, if we have never yet been fully and entirely in earnest in the petition, endeavour this morning to find from the petition before us some subject of self-examination, to aid us in preparing for that blessed ordinance to which we have this day been invited.

We would commence, then, by urging each of you to make the inquiry— What reason have I for thinking that the kingdom of which we have been speaking has been established in my own heart? And be assured, you never set yourselves to answer a question on which the fate of your immortal soul more completely and more entirely depended. Perhaps you may reply, that you are assured upon this subject, not by any one particular, but by a combination of circumstances. You regularly attend the means of grace, and study God's word. It is well; but, brethren, you know that the means of grace are not the kingdom of grace: this would, indeed, in a remarkable manner be mistaking the means for the end. We can imagine many of the Jews attending our Lord's whole ministry, and at last being among the crowd who cried Crucify him! Crucify him!" We know that Herod heard the preaching of John gladly, and yet was ultimately a murderer. So little are the means of grace and the kingdom of grace convertible terms.

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