O may God give us all grace to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. To seek first the kingdom of God; to work earnestly, each in his place, to do God's will, and to teach and help others to do it likewise. To seek his righteousness, which is the righteousness of the heart and spirit: and then all other things will be added to us. All outward forms and ceremonies, ways of speaking, ways of behaving, which are good and right for us, will come to us as a matter of course; growing up in us naturally and honestly, without any affectation or hypocrisy, and the purity and soberness, the reverence and earnestness of our outward conversation, will be a pattern of the purity and soberness, the reverence and earnestness, which dwells in our hearts by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. SERMON XXXVIII. A PEOPLE PREPARED FOR THE LORD Ephesians iii. 3-6. How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore in few words, whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the Gospel. This day is the feast of the Epiphany. Epiphany, as many of you know, means 'shewing,' because on this day the Lord Jesus Christ was first shewn to the Gentiles; to the Gentile wise men who, as you heard in the Gospel, saw his star in the east, and came to worship him. And the part of Scripture from which I have taken my text, is used for the Epistle this day, because in it St. Paul explains to us the meaning of the Epiphany. The meaning of those wise men being shewn our Lord, and worshipping him, though they were not Jews as he was, but Gentiles. He says that it means this, that the Gentiles were fellow-heirs with the Jews, and of the same body as them, and partakers of God's promise in Christ by the Gospel. This does not seem so very wonderful to us; and why? Because we, though we are Gentiles like those wise men, have lived so long, we and our forefathers before us, in the light of the Gospel, that we are inclined to take it as a matter of course; forgetting what a wonderful, unspeakable, condescension it was of God, not to spare his only begotten Son, but freely to give him for us. God forgive us! We are so heaped with blessings that we neglect them, forget them, take them as our right, instead of remembering our sins and ungratefulness, and saying, Thy mercies are new every morning; it is only of thy mercies that we are not consumed. But to St. Paul it was very wonderful news. A mystery, as he said; quite a new and astonishing thought, that heathens had any share in God's love and Christ's salvation.