1. That our reliance may be rational we should know what it is that God has promised, and what we may expect from Him; else we may be disappointed in all our hopes. 2. Reliance must be accompanied with obedience, with a purpose, and endeavour to do the things that are pleasing to God. 3. Reliance must also be connected with particular supplications to Him to bless us. 4. It must be accompanied with diligence and prudence in our worldly affairs. 5. It excludes immoderate cares, vain desires, fretful discontent. 6. Although reliance be so advantageous to us, even for the present, that it ought to be considered rather as a privilege than a duty, yet it is a noble virtue and a disposition of mind most agreeable to God. It is the greatest honour we can pay to Him. By it we show our belief in His wisdom, power, equity, and goodness.--_Jortin._ _MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 7-12. THE WAY (1) TO HEALTH, (2) TO WEALTH, (3) TO ENDURANCE. Three exhortations are here given, to each of which is attached a promise on reason to induce the young man to obey. +I. An exhortation to humility.+ (Verses 7 and 8.) Its peculiar appropriateness and importance will be seen if we consider--1. _The person to whom the exhortation is addressed._ "My son" (ver. 1). Lack of experience has a great tendency to breed self-conceit. As a rule, those who have lived the longest and have most acquaintance with men and things are the least disposed to be "wise in their own eyes." Ignorance is the mother of self-conceit. These words are addressed to a young man, because his youth would render him very liable to this fault. 2. _That self-conceit does not end with oneself but is dangerous to others._ The man who insists upon the correctness of his knowledge of a dangerous way, and will not listen to the experience of those who are better acquainted with it, is sure to find some who believe in him and follow his guidance. Thus he may not only lose his own life, but be the murderer of others. 3. _It shuts a man up to his ignorance._ The only way to become wise is to feel we are ignorant. As a lunatic must be shut up with others in a like condition while his madness is upon him, so a self-conceited man must be imprisoned with the fools of the universe while he remains in that condition. 4. _The Divine woes which are levelled against such an one._ All the woes pronounced by our Lord against the Scribes and Pharisees were against sins born of this sin. The charge against them was that they were wise in their own eyes. "For judgment am I come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind. And some of the Pharisees which were with him said, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, _We see;_ therefore your sin remaineth" (John ix. 39-41). "Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight" (Isa. v. 21). +II. The remedy against