II. The next passage, on which I desire to make a few remarks, is Matthew vi. 33. "But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." After our Lord, in the previous verses, had been pointing His disciples "to the fowls of the air," and "the lilies of the field," in order that they should be without carefulness about the necessaries of life; He adds: "Therefore take no thought, (literally, be not anxious) saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek;) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." Observe here particularly that we, the children of God, should be different from the nations of the earth, from those who have no Father in heaven, and who therefore make it their great business, their first anxious concern, what they shall eat, and what they shall drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed. We, the children of God, should, as in every other respect, so in this particular also, be different from the world, and prove to the world that we believe that we have a Father in heaven, who knoweth that we have need of all these things. The fact that our Almighty Father, who is full of infinite love to us His children, (and who has proved to us His love in the gift of His only begotten Son, and His almighty power in raising him from the dead), knows that we have need of these things, should remove all anxiety from our minds. There is, however, one thing that we have to attend to, and which we ought to attend to, with reference to our temporal necessities, it is mentioned in our verse: "But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." The great business which the disciple of the Lord Jesus has to be concerned about (for this word was spoken to disciples, to professed believers) is, to seek the kingdom of God, i.e. to seek, as I view it, after the external and internal prosperity of the church of Christ. If, according to our ability, and according to the opportunity which the Lord gives us, we seek to win souls for the Lord Jesus, that appears to me to be seeking the eternal prosperity of the kingdom of God; and if we, as members of the body of Christ, seek to benefit our fellow members in the body, helping them on in grace and truth, or caring for them in any way to their edification, that would be seeking the internal prosperity of the kingdom of God. But in connexion with this we have also "to seek His righteousness," which means, (as it was spoken to disciples, to those who have a Father in heaven, and not to those who were without), to seek to be more and more like God, to seek to be inwardly conformed to the mind of God.--If these two things are attended to, (and they imply also that we are not slothful in business), then do we come under that precious promise: "And all these things (that is food, raiment, or