{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030749.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030749.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030749.htm","text":"\u201cThy kingdom come\u201d has also reference to that whereto \u201cThy will be done\u201d refers\u2014in us, that is. For when does God not reign, in whose hand is the heart of all kings? 8790 But whatever we wish for ourselves we augur for Him, and to Him we attribute what from Him we expect. And so, if the manifestation of the Lord\u2019s kingdom pertains unto the will of God and unto our anxious expectation, how do some pray for some protraction of the age, 8791 when the kingdom of God, which we pray may arrive, tends unto the consummation of the age? 8792 Our wish is, that our reign be hastened, not our servitude protracted. Even if it had not been prescribed in the Prayer that we should ask for the advent of the kingdom, we should, unbidden, have sent forth that cry, hastening toward the realization of our hope. The souls of the martyrs beneath the altar 8793 cry in jealousy unto the Lord, \u201cHow long, Lord, dost Thou not avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?\u201d 8794 for, of course, their avenging is regulated by 8795 the end of the age. Nay, Lord, Thy kingdom come with all speed,\u2014the prayer of Christians the confusion of the heathen, 8796 the exultation of angels, for the sake of which we suffer, nay, rather, for the sake of which we pray!\nOr, \u201cworld,\u201d s\u00e6culi. See Matt. xxiv. 3, especially in the Greek. By \u201cpraying for some protraction in the age,\u201d Tertullian appears to refer to some who used to pray that the end might be deferred (Rigalt.).\n683:8793 683:8794 683:8795\nSo Dodgson aptly renders \u201cdirigitur a.\u201d\n683:8796\n[See Ad Nationes, p. 128, supra.]","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part III: The F...","type":"page"}