The Enarrations, or Expositions, on the Psalms

^8. Let them escape the water without substance, and say, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us over for a prey unto their teeth”. For the hunters were following, and had placed a bait in their trap. What bait? The sweetness of this life, so that each man for the sake of the sweetness of this life may thrust his head into iniquity, and be caught in the trap. Not they, in whom the Lord was, they who say, “If the Lord Himself had not been in us;” they have not been taken in the trap. Let the Lord be in you, and you will not be taken in the trap.

9. “Our soul is escaped, even as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers”. Because the Lord was in the soul itself, therefore has that soul escaped, even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. Why like a bird? Because it had fallen heedlessly, like a bird; and it could say afterwards, God will forgive me. Unstable bird, rather set your feet firm upon the rock: go not into the trap. You will be taken, consumed, crushed. Let the Lord be in you, and He will deliver you from greater threats, from the snare of the fowlers. As if you were to see a bird about to fall into a snare, you make a greater noise that it may fly away from the net; so also, when perhaps some even of the Martyrs were stretching out their neck after the enjoyment of this life, the Lord, who was in them, made the noise of hell, and the bird was delivered from the snare of the fowlers. The snare was the sweetness of this life: they were not entangled in the snare, and were slain; by their slaughter the net was broken; no longer did the sweetness of this life remain, that they might again be entangled by it, but it was crushed. Was the bird also crushed? Far be it! For it was not in the snare: “The snare is broken, and we are delivered.”

10....“Our help stands in the Name of the Lord, who has made heaven and earth”. For if this were not our help, the snare would not indeed remain for ever; but when the bird was once taken, it would be crushed. For this life will pass away; and they who shall have been taken in by its pleasures, and through these pleasures have offended God, will pass away with this life. For the snare will be broken; be ye assured of this: all the sweetness of this present life will no longer exist, when the lot assigned to it has been fulfilled; but we must not be enthralled by it, so that when the net is broken, you may then rejoice and say, “The snare is broken, and we are delivered.” But lest you think that you can do this of your own strength, consider whose work your deliverance is (for if you are proud, you fall into the snare), and say, “Our help stands in the Name of the Lord, who has made heaven and earth.”...