[Addressed to all who love and long for the coming of Christ’s blessed kingdom, and whose hearts may be inclined to unite in seeking its welfare.]

Christian Brethren!

The business for the promotion of which these few hints are with all due respect recommended to your candid attention is such that we are persuaded you will cheerfully unite in it. Indeed it would be unfriendly in us to suspect your readiness to so good a work. Nevertheless, considering the backwardness and inattention common to us all in this world, you will not think it superfluous in this case to urge a few motives, for the purpose of stimulating us to wrestle hard with God. We wish you then, and ourselves with you, seriously to attend to the following considerations:—

1. Consider Christ’s readiness to hear and answer prayer, especially on these subjects. We are greatly mistaken if we imagine our Lord Jesus takes no pleasure in his own work, but is loth to prosper it, and only is persuaded by us, or does it to oblige us. He takes infinitely more pleasure in it than we do; and when he does it in answer to our prayers, it is that we may be encouraged, and that his favours may be thankfully received. Christ takes care to let us know how ready he is to hear prayer, especially in behalf of his own cause, in that he directs us to pray for these blessings; yea, he even commands us to pray for the coming of his kingdom before we ask for our daily bread; and to “seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness,” promising that “all other things shall be added unto us,” Matt. 6:33.

Indeed it may well be supposed that Christ’s heart is in this work; for he laid down his life as a ground whereon to rear the structure. The foundation of this glorious kingdom was laid in blood,—not, like too many earthly kingdoms, in the blood of the conquered, but in that of the conqueror. Yes, he died that he might live and see a numerous seed of converts; and might prolong his days, or lengthen out his holy and happy kingdom. When he ascended into heaven, and took the government of all worlds into his hands, it was with a view to the carrying on of this blessed cause. He became Head over all things, but it was to the church, that he might cause every thing to subserve her welfare.

And now having thus died to lay the foundation of his kingdom, and thus long presided over all the kingdoms of the world to ripen things for it, it would be very strange indeed if he were indifferent about it! So far from that, nothing seems to lie so near his heart. He is pleased to look upon the conversion of sinners as reward enough for all his sorrows—as sufficient to make him forget all his trials! As a woman, as soon as she is delivered from travail, remembers no more the anguish for joy that a man-child is born into the world, so it is said, “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied!” Yes, Christians, so far is he from being reluctant to grant us these requests, that he is pleased in these matters not only to command us to ask, but to represent himself as waiting to be gracious; yea, as being at our command, as ready to bestow these mercies whenever we shall earnestly pray for them. “Thus saith the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me!” See how intent he is upon what concerns his sons, and the work of his hands. O let us not be backward on our part.

2. Consider what the Lord has done in times past, and that in answer to prayer. When Israel, who was God’s church at that time, was in Egypt, and things looked very dark indeed, they cried, and the Lord heard their cry, and came down to deliver them. Their deliverance was the extending of Christ’s kingdom; and God overthrew Pharaoh and his host for setting themselves against it. The church in after-ages, when in her low estate at Babylon, is represented as making use of this as a plea with God. Thus they cry to him, “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep: that hath made the depth of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?” And was their prayer answered? Yes; the Lord presently replied, “I am the Lord thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared; the Lord of hosts is his name!”—Yea, as a kind of echo to their request, “Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem, which hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury.—Thus saith thy Lord Jehovah, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thy hand the cup of trembling, the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again.”—See Isa. 51:9, 17, 22.

While Judah groaned beneath Babel’s yoke, Daniel set his face three times a day towards Jerusalem; at length his prayers and supplications are heard, and an angel is sent to comfort him, yea, and to inform him that at the beginning of his supplications the commandment in favour of Judah came forth. And now God’s conduct towards Pharaoh and all his host shall be acted over again towards Belshazzar and his. Yes, he not only gave Egypt and Ethiopia, but Babylon for their ransom.

The church of God was reduced exceedingly low just before the coming of Christ, but what was the conduct of those few that were on God’s side? Some of them are distinguished by the character of those who “looked for redemption in Jerusalem,” and others are said to have “continued in prayer night and day.” At length, through the tender mercy of God, their prayers were answered, and “the day-spring from on high visited them!”

Just before that great outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the church was in a low and disconsolate condition, having lost Christ’s personal presence; however, they united with one accord in ardent prayer, in an upper room, to the number of about a hundred and twenty. Presently their light broke forth as the morning—a little one becomes a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. Thousands are converted by a single sermon, and Satan falls before the gospel of Christ like lightning from heaven.—May we not make the same use of these glorious works of God, with some others in that day, as Judah did in Babylon of what God had done for them in Egypt?—O let us pray to the Lord Jesus that the work may be carried on; that antichrist may be consumed with the Spirit of his mouth, and destroyed by the brightness of his coming; that the kingdoms of this world may become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, and that he may reign for ever and ever.

3. Let the present religious state of the world be considered to this end. Christianity has not yet made its way, even in name, over one-fifth part of the world. Out of about one thousand millions, who are supposed to inhabit our globe, not above one hundred and seventy millions profess the Christian name: all the rest are heathens, Jews, or Mahomedans; and, of those who do profess it, the far greater part are either of the apostate Church of Rome, or of the Greek Church, which is nearly as corrupt. Add to this, what great numbers of real heathens abound in Christian lands, and unbelievers even in the congregations of the faithful. Surely it is high time for us to awake out of sleep, and to send our united cries to heaven in behalf of our fellow creatures!

4. Consider what God has promised to do for his church in times to come. For an absolute impossibility we can have no hope, and for what God hath declared shall never come to pass we can have no warrant to pray; but when we pray for the spread of Christ’s kingdom, our object is clogged with neither of these difficulties. On the contrary, it is accompanied with the strongest assurances of success. Let us not imagine that God has yet done all he intends to do for his church; or that Christ has yet seen of the travail of his soul so as to be satisfied. Besides the various promises referred to in the foregoing pages, the first setting up of Christ’s kingdom is compared to a little stone, cut out of a mountain without hands, but which should in time break in pieces all the rest, and become “a great mountain, and fill the whole earth,” Dan. 2:35. The King himself compared this his blessed kingdom in its infancy to a “grain of mustard seed,” the least of all seeds, but when grown, the “greatest of all herbs;” implying, no doubt, that his kingdom in its beginning was apparently the most weak and despicable of any kingdom; but before it should be finished it should be the greatest, most glorious, and extensive, of all the kingdoms that were ever set up—greater than that of Alexander himself, and more durable than that of Rome, Matt. 13:31–33. In the same place, he compares it to a little leaven which a woman put into three measures of meal till the whole was leavened. Glorious thought! Christ has been leavening the world for many hundred years, by the preaching of the gospel; and yet, awful to think, what a great part of it continues unleavened to this day! But, O blessed be God, it shall not be given up till the whole is leavened! Forlorn as the state of the heathen world is, our Lord Jesus has asked them for his inheritance, and he will have them, even the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession, Psal. 2:8. O blessed period! When Jew and Gentile, the fair European and the sunburnt African, with men of every other description, shall all unite to serve the Lord.

Must it not be very reviving to see those branches that have been so long broken off the olive tree, because of unbelief, grafted in again?—to see them return, and, with the bitter tears of reflection, “seek the Lord their God, and David their King, and fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days?” Hos. 3:5. Yes, verily, the receiving of them back again shall be to the Gentiles like “life from the dead!” Rom. 11:15. Then shall they be restored to their own land, and no more be exposed to the hostile attacks of quarrelsome neighbours as heretofore, but “Israel shall be with Egypt and with Assyria a blessing in the midst of the land; whom Jehovah of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance,” Isa. 19:23, 25. Then those glorious things spoken of the city of God, in the eighty-seventh Psalm, shall be accomplished.—We shall see “Rahab and Babylon, Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia,” given to the church. “Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to God,” Psal. 68:31. Oh what encouragement is here to pray! How long these things will be we know not; but this we know, we are nearer by above two thousand four hundred years than the church was in Isaiah’s time, and even then they that made mention of Jehovah were charged, saying, “Keep not silence, and give him no rest, till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth,” Isa. 62:6, 7. Let us never forget that Jehovah connects the fulfilment of his own promises with the fervent supplications of his people. “I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them,” Ezek. 36:37.

5. If we have any regard to the welfare of our countrymen, connexions, and friends, let that stimulate us in this work. Let us remember we have not only heathens, and Jews, and others abroad, to pray for; but few of us are wholly unconnected with heathen neighbours, heathen relations, or stubborn and unbelieving children. Let these be borne in the arms of prayer before the Lord. Though they can claim no pity from God, yet they have a right to ours, because we were in the same condition. Let our pity then be extended to those who have none for themselves, and our prayers ascend for such who as yet call not upon God’s name. Though there be no reason why God should save our children, relations, or friends, before others, yet there is a reason why we should seek their salvation before others, because they are particularly put under our care, or stand in connexion with us.

To neglect to carry our children to Christ for a blessing from want of love, if such a thing could be in a good man, would be more cruel than the ostrich in the wilderness! So were it possible for a Christian to be amongst wicked neighbours and wicked relations, and, seeing he is safe himself, care nothing about them, surely he must be beside himself! How unlike would this be to the spirit of his Lord and Saviour—he wept over those who wept not for themselves! O Christians, for your country’s sake, your neighbours’ sake, your friends’ sake, yea, your enemies’ sake, as well as for the honour of Christ, seek the welfare of Zion, and pray for the extending of his kingdom in the world!

6. Consider that what is requested is so very small. The Lord does not ask us in this case for our silver or our gold, which, if he did, it were but a trifle to give.—He does not require us to sacrifice our lives, families, or friends, in support of his cause, which, if he did, it is no more than multitudes of the best men that ever the world saw have complied with;—but he only says, “Give me thine heart!” Seek the prosperity of His interest who died for yours—of that interest with which your own is so inseparably united—yea, of that interest which is your own; for Christ and you have no separate interests.

As to the times for public prayer, nothing can be less burdensome than once in a month—but what did I say, burdensome?—God forbid that any employment of this sort should ever prove a burden! It is hoped it will be attended to as a privilege rather than merely as a duty. It is hoped that Christians will feel a pleasure, and find a benefit, in these meetings, that will induce them of their own accord to meet together more frequently than this proposes, either on Lord’s-day mornings, or on any convenient opportunities, for the same most desirable purposes.

7. And lastly, It will not be in vain, whatever be the immediate and apparent issue of it. Could we but heartily unite and make an earnest effort, there is great reason to hope great good might follow. Whenever those glorious outpourings of God’s Spirit shall come, all over the world, no doubt it will be in answer to the prayers of his people.—But suppose we should never live to see those days, still our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. God would be glorified; and is this of no moment? It would convey this piece of intelligence to the world, that God has yet some hearty friends in it, who will continue to pray to him in the darkest times.—But this is not all: our petitions may prove like seed in the earth, that shall not perish, though it may not spring up in our days. Thus the “prophets laboured, and the apostles entered into their labours” (John 4:38); and what if we should be the sowers, and our posterity the reapers, shall we grudge at this? As great an honour at the last day, perhaps, may attend Isaiah, who hardly knew who had believed his report, as Peter, by whose sermon thousands were converted in an hour.—But neither is this all.—There are different degrees of prosperity bestowed upon different parts of Zion, and these favours are often granted to those particular communities where most ardent prayer, love, and holiness prevail.—Add to all this, the prosperity of our souls, as Christians, is generally connected with an earnest pursuit of God’s glory and Christ’s kingdom. Consolation, like reputation, will not do to be sought directly and for its own sake. In that case it will flee from us. But let us seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to us. One great reason perhaps of so many Christians going so destitute of Divine comfort, is because they care about scarcely any thing else; God therefore justly withholds it from them. If they were more to seek his glory and the extending of his kingdom in the world, they would find consolation come of its own accord. He that cannot lie, speaking of his church, hath said, “They shall prosper that love her.”

Fuller, A. G. (1988). “A Few Persuasives to ‘A General Union in Prayer’ for the Revival of Religion,” Miscellaneous Tracts. The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Expositions—Miscellaneous (J. Belcher, Ed.; Vol. 3, pp. 666–670). Sprinkle Publications.