THE PROTESTANT INTEREST, New England after Puritanism
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With news flooding the Boston presses of George Whitefield’sawakenings, Thomas Prince preached one of the masterpieces ofeighteenth-century evangelicalism, The Endless Increase of Christ’sGovernment (May 25, 1740). In this sermon, Prince argued that thekingdom of God was advancing inexorably toward the conversion ofmillions across the nations, bringing people from all over the worldinto the fold of Christ before his final return. His vision was interna-tionalist and utterly optimistic about God’s ultimate triumph in theend of history. Perhaps Prince hoped that the victory of God wasbeginning at that moment:For as this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all theworld, for a witness to all nations, before the end of this presentstate shall come. . . . I cannot expect, that not only all thesouthern, western, and north-western parts of this new world,and Calefornia, will, in their times, be full of pure and piouschurches, rejoicing in the great Redeemer; but even all thatfurther western continent, extending from America to Asia, andthat the gospel will go round and conquer every nation in Japanand China, Tartary, India, Persia, Africa, and Egypt, until itreturn to Zion, where it rose. . . . And when this whole globeshall be thus successively enlightened, then comes on the end ofthe present earthly scene: but it is then suprizingly to change,
