Of the Signification in Scripture of Kingdom of God, of Holy, Sacred, and Sacrament
The “Kingdom of God,” in the writings of divines, and specially in sermons and treatises of devotion, is taken most commonly for eternal felicity, after this life, in the highest heaven, which they also call the kingdom of glory; and sometimes for the earnest of that felicity, sanctification, which they term the kingdom of grace; but never for the monarchy, that is to say, the sovereign power of God over any subjects acquired by their own consent, which is the proper signification of kingdom.
To the contrary, I find the “kingdom of God” to signify, in most places of Scripture, a “kingdom properly so named,” constituted by the votes of the people of Israel in peculiar manner; wherein they chose God for their king by covenant made with Him, upon God’s promising them the possession of the land of Canaan; and but seldom metaphorically; and then it is taken for “dominion over sin”; (and only in the New Testament;) because such a dominion as that, every subject shall have in the kingdom of God, and without prejudice to the sovereign.