The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^8. The result that ensues is that described in the next verse: “They that make them are like them, and so are all such as put their trust in them”. Let them therefore see with open eyes, and worship with shut and dead understandings, idols that neither see nor live. “But the house of Israel has hoped in the Lord”. “For hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” But that this patience may endure to the end, “He is their helper and defender.” Do perhaps spiritual persons (by whom carnal minds are built up in “the spirit of meekness,” because they pray as higher for lower minds) already see, and is that already to them reality which to the lower is hope? It is not so. For even “the house of Aaron has hope in the Lord”. Therefore, that they also may stretch forward perseveringly towards those things which are before them, and may run perseveringly, until they may apprehend that for which they are apprehended, and may know even as they are known, “He is their helper and defender.” For both “fear the Lord, and have hoped in the Lord: He is their helper and defender”.