iniquity and purifies us. That points to its power in delivering us
from the service and practice of sin. He buys us from the despot whose
slaves we were, and makes us His own in the hatred of evil and the
doing of righteousness. Moved by His death, we become capable of
heroisms and martyrdoms of devotion to Him. Brethren, it is only as
that self-sacrificing love touches us, which died for our sins upon the
Cross, that the diabolical chain of selfishness will be broken from our
affections and our wills, and we shall be led into the large place of
glad surrender of ourselves to the sweetness and the gentle authority
of His omnipotent love.

III. The last thought that I suggest is the issues to which this mutual
possession points. God owns men, and is owned by them, in order that
there may be a giving and receiving of mutual services of love.

'The Lord's portion is His people.' That in the Old Testament is always
laid as the foundation of certain obligations under which He has come,
and which He will abundantly discharge. What is a great landlord
expected to do to his estate? 'What ought I to have done to my
vineyard?' the divine Proprietor asks through the mouth of His servant
the prophet. He ought to till it, He ought not to starve it, He ought
to fence it, He ought to cast a wall about it, He ought to reap the
fruits. And He does all that for His inheritance. God's honour is
concerned in His portion not being waste. It is not to be a 'garden of
the sluggard,' by which people who pass can see the thorns growing
there. So He will till it, He will plough it, He will pick out the
weeds, and all the disciplines of life will come to us, and the
ploughshare will be driven deep into the heart, that 'the peaceable
fruit of righteousness' may spring up. He will fence His vineyard.
Round about His inheritance His hand will be cast, within His people