But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
Ver. 9. But we had the sentence] Gr. Απολριμα, the answer or denunciation of death. Here we must distinguish between answers of trial and direct answers. This was of the former sort, for Paul died not at that time. When Leyden was so long and so strictly besieged by the Duke of Alva, that they were forced for their sustenance to search and scrape dunghills, &c., and the duke, in the language of blasphemy, threatened the defendants with cruel death, that very night the winds turned, the tide swelled, and the waters came in, and forced him to raise the siege.
That we should not trust] Hope is never higher elevated than when our state in all men's eyes is at lowest.