I pray God, that we may be of the number of those who shall hear this joyful and most comfortable voice of Christ our Saviour, when he will say, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom which is prepared for you before the foundation of the world was laid.” There are a great number amongst the Christian people, who in the Lord’s prayer, when they pray, “Thy kingdom come,” pray that this day may come; but yet, for all that, they are drowned in the world, they say the words with their lips, but they cannot tell what is the meaning of it; they speak it only with their tongue: which saying indeed is to no purpose. But the man or woman that saith these words, “Thy kingdom come,” with a faithful heart, no doubt he or she desires in very deed that God will come to judgment, and amend all things in this world, to pull down satan that old serpent under our feet. But there are a great number of us who are not ready. Some have lived in this world fifty years, some sixty, but yet for all that they are not prepared for his coming; they ever think he will not come yet. But I tell you, that though his general coming be not yet, yet for all that he will come one day, and take us out of this world: and, no doubt, as he finds us, so we shall have; if he find us ready, and in the state of salvation, no doubt we shall be saved for ever, world without end. But, if he find us in the state of damnation, we shall be damned, world without end, there is no remedy after we are once past this world; no penance will help then, nor anything that man is able to do for us. “And then shall they see the Son of man come in a cloud with power and great glory.” St. Paul to the Thessalonians setteth out the coming of Christ and our resurrection; but he speaks in the same place only of the rising of the good and faithful that shall be saved. But the Holy Scripture in other places witnesses, that the wicked shall rise too, and shall receive their sentence from Christ, and so go to hell, where they shall be punished world without end. Now, St. Paul’s words are these, “This say we unto you in the word of the Lord: that we which shall live and shall remain to the coming of the Lord, shall not come before them which sleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, and the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall arise first: then we which shall live, even we which shall remain, shall be caught up with them also in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord; wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thess. iv.