though all creatures are His, and all men are His servants and His
possession, yet, like certain regiments in our own British army, there
are some who have the right to bear in a special manner on their
uniform and on their banners the emblazonment, 'The King's Own.' 'The
Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.'

Well, then, the next thought is that the special relationship of
possession is constituted by mutual love. I said at the beginning of
these remarks that as concerns men's relations, the only real
possession is through love, sympathy, and communion, and that that must
necessarily be mutual. We have a perfect right to apply the human
analogy here; in fact, we are bound to do it if we would rightly
understand such words as those of my text; and it just leads us to
this, that the one thing whereby God reckons that He possesses a man at
all is when His love falls upon that man's heart and soaks into it, and
when there springs up in the heart a corresponding emotion and
affection. The men who welcome the divine love that goes through the
whole world, seeking such to worship it, and to trust it, and to become
its own; and who therefore lovingly yield to the loving divine will,
and take it for their law--these are the men whom He regards as His
'portion' and 'the lot of His inheritance.' So that God is mine, and
that 'I am God's,' are two ends of one truth; 'I possess Him,' and 'I
am possessed by Him,' are but the statement of one fact expressed from
two points of view. In the one case you look upon it from above, in the
other case you look upon it from beneath. All the sweet commerce of
mutual surrender and possession which makes the joy of our hearts, in
friendship and in domestic life, we have the right to lift up into this
loftier region, and find in it the last teaching of what makes the
special bond of mutual possession between God and man.