od from whom his righteousness
comes, and gratitude to that God to whom he owes his pardon.

And so with us, my friends, if ever we have fallen, and been
pardoned, and risen again to a new, a truer, a more honest, a more
righteous life. Our forms of devotion ought then to become not a
snare and a hypocrisy, but honest outward signs of the spiritual
grace which is within us; as honest and as rational as the shake of
the hand to the friend whom we truly love, as the bowing of the knee
before the Queen for whom we would gladly die.

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