From The Christ of the Synoptic Gospels by Edwin Hoskins (Tr 1865) in Essays Catholic and Critical ed E Selwyn 1926.
[In the Gospels] 'The petitions of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," indicate that the phrase "The Kingdom of God," or "of Heaven," is more than a poetical representation of an ideal. It presumes the Kingdom of God exists in heaven. In the immediate presence of God His sovereignty is complete and absolute, and heaven is the sphere in which that sovereignty operates perfectly and eternally. The genitives which qualify the word "Kingdom" are primarily genitives of origin. If the Kingdom is to be established on earth, it musty come from God or from Heaven. Thus the salvation of men, that is their incorporation into the sphere in which the sovereignty of God operates, is only possible either by their ascension into the heavens or by the descent and extension of the supernatural order from Heaven to earth. Salvation is therefore conceived of as necessarily dependent upon an act of God. The conception that the human order can be transformed into the Kingdom of Heaven by a process of gradual evolution is completely foreign to the New Testament.
The Synoptic Gospels assume throughout that the supernatural order has descended to earth. The Kingdom has come.'
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