Once, indeed, man's understanding gave clear, unclouded light, as man's high prerogative--created in the image of God. But now--degraded by the fall, and darkened by the corruption of the heart--it must prove a false guide. Even in a renewed man--a prophet of God--it proved a mistaken counsellor (2 Sam. vii. 2, 5). Yet throw it not away; cultivate it; use it actively; but _lean_ not to it.--_Bridges._ "He shall Himself," _i.e._, by His own Spirit. There is an emphatic pronoun. When we walk, it is not we that walk, but God.--_Miller._ "Leaning to our own understanding" is, as far as it prevails, a kind of practical atheism. To form and prosecute our plans in this spirit of self-confidence, is to act as if there were _no_ God--as if the fool's _thought_, or the fool's _wish_, were true.--_Wardlaw._ +I. The duty enjoined.+ 1. _Entire._ 2. _Exclusive._ 3. _Uniform._ +II. The blessing promised--Direction.+ _Necessary_ on account of--1. Our fallibility. 2. The hazards of the way. 3. False guides. _Promised._ 1. By the pointings of Providence. 2. By the lessons of the Bible. 3. By the influences of the Holy Spirit.--_Outlines by Rev. G. Brooks._ The fundamental principle of all religion, consisting in an entire self-commitment to the grace and truth of God, with the abandonment of every attempt to attain blessedness by one's own strength or wisdom.--_Lange's Commentary._ The distant and unconfiding will come on occasion of State formalities to the sovereign; but the dear child will leap forward with everything. The Queen of England is the mother of a family. At one time her ministers of State came gravely into her presence to converse on the policy of nations; at another, her infant runs to her arms for protection, frightened at the buzzing of a fly. Will she love this last appeal because it is a little thing? We have had fathers of our flesh who delighted when we came to them with our minutest ailments. How much more should we bring all our ways to the Father of our spirits, and live by simple faith on Him.--_Arnot._ We may be led for the exercise of our faith into a way of disappointment, or even of _mistake_. But no step well prayed over will ever bring ultimate regret.--_Bridges._ Every enlightened believer trusts in a Divine power enlightening the understanding; he therefore follows the dictates of the understanding more religiously than any other man.--_M. Cheyne._ The moralist, in preaching this trust in God, anticipates the teaching that man is justified by faith.--_Plumptre._ See your confidence be not divided, part on God and part on man. Such a confidence may keep you from the lions (2 Kings xvii. 25) but it cannot keep you out of hell. A house built partly on firm ground, partly on sand, will fall. To trust in God is so to lean upon Him that if He fail thee thou sinkest.--_Francis Taylor._ He shall direct, as He carefully chose out the Israelites' way in the wilderness; not the shortest, but the safest way.--_Trapp._