In short, the kingdom of God is a civil kingdom; which consisted, first, in the obligation of the people of Israel to those laws, which Moses should bring unto them from Mount Sinai; and which afterwards the high-priest for the time being, should deliver to them from before the cherubims in the _sanctum sanctorum_; and which kingdom having been cast off in the election of Saul, the prophets foretold, should be restored by Christ; and the restoration whereof we daily pray for, when we say in the Lord’s Prayer, _Thy kingdom come_; and the right whereof we acknowledge, when we add, _For thine is the kingdom, the power, and glory, for ever and ever, Amen_; and the proclaiming whereof, was the preaching of the apostles; and to which men are prepared, by the teachers of the Gospel; to embrace which Gospel, that is to say, to promise obedience to God’s government, is to be in the _kingdom of grace_, because God hath _gratis_ given to such the power to be the subjects, that is children, of God hereafter, when Christ shall come in majesty to judge the world, and actually to govern his own people, which is called _the kingdom of glory_. If the kingdom of God, called also the kingdom of heaven, from the gloriousness and admirable height of that throne, were not a kingdom which God by his lieutenants, or vicars, who deliver his commandments to the people, did exercise on earth; there would not have been so much contention, and war, about who it is, by whom God speaketh to us; neither would many priests have troubled themselves with spiritual jurisdiction, nor any king have denied it them. [Sidenote: Holy, what.] Out of this literal interpretation of the _kingdom of God_, ariseth also the true interpretation of the word HOLY. For it is a word, which in God’s kingdom answereth to that, which men in their kingdoms use to call _public_, or the _king’s_. The king of any country is the _public_ person, or representative of all his own subjects. And God the king of Israel was the _Holy One_ of Israel. The nation which is subject to one earthly sovereign, is the nation of that sovereign, that is, of the public person. So the Jews, who were God’s nation, were called (_Exod._ xix. 6) _a holy nation_. For by _holy_, is always understood either God himself, or that which is God’s in propriety; as by public is always meant, either the person of the commonwealth itself, or something that is so the commonwealth’s, as no private person can claim any propriety therein.