Post-Mediæval Preachers/Philip von Hartung
This very popular preacher was born on the 25th October, 1629, at Theising, in Bohemia. He entered the novitiate of the Jesuit order in 1645, at the age of sixteen. He spent his early life in different colleges, but finally he ascertained that his vocation was to be a preacher, and thenceforth he devoted his time and energies to the composition of sermons. He preached most frequently at Sternberg, in Moravia, and at Glogau, in Silesia. He died at Eger on the 9th March, 1682, aged fifty-three. The greater part of his works were published after his decease.
1. R. P. Philippi Hartung, Concio tergemina rustica, civica, aulica, in Dominicas; Colon., 1680, 4to., 2 vols.; Egræ, 1686, fol.; Colon., 1709, 4to.; Norimbergæ, 1718, fol. Conciones tergeminæ in Festa; Norimbergæ, 1711, 4to. Ibid., 1718, fol., 2 vols.
2. Philippicæ sive Invectivæ LX. in Notorios Peccatores. Pro singulis totius anni Dominicis. Ægræ, 1687, fol.; Calissii, 1688, 4to.; Augustæ et Dilingæ, 1695, 4to.
3. Problemata Evangelica; Egræ, 1689, fol.; Augustse et Dilingæ, 1695, 4to.
4. Heiliger Tag; Prag, 1733, 12mo. Heiliger Tag und gute Nacht; Rauffbeyern, 1745, 12mo.
The sermons of Philip von Hartung are very unequal; some of them are polished gems, others are very rough diamonds; but none are without value. The preacher had his mind stored with matter, but he was wanting in the art of nicely digesting it, and reproducing what fermented in his brain, in a pleasant form. At least, so we must judge of him from his published Latin sermons; but it is quite open to question whether these discourses were delivered as they are written. I am rather inclined to regard them as his schemes from which he preached, the outlines which he developed extempore. And this I think the more probable, as the vast majority are short. It must be remembered that only one edition of the sermons appeared during the author’s lifetime, and that, only two years before his death. In this edition arc contained the Sunday sermons, but not those for the festivals.
Hartung gives at least three sermons for each Sunday and festival: one addressed to a rural congregation, the second to a town audience, and the third delivered before Court. As might be expected, the concio aulica is the poorest of the set, the preacher being less at his ease, and more fettered by conventionalities. The rustic sermons are capital. He preaches on broad facts of religion, Sunday after Sunday, with striking vigour, considerable beauty, and no small amount of originality.
During the Sundays in Advent he preaches to the rural congregation on the Last Judgment. The first sermon is on the appearance in Heaven of the cross, the sign of the Son of Man; the second is on the trumpet-call waking the dead; the third on the examination of the risen ones; the fourth on the final dooms of good and bad; each of these is a most striking sermon.
From the first Sunday after the Epiphany to Quinquagesima, Hartung preaches on Hell: the absence of Jesus, its chief woe, the hunger and thirst of the damned, the gloom, the tears, the horror of the abode, the undying worm of conscience, the fire, the eternity of the punishment, the murmurs of the damned, &c.
From the first Sunday in Lent to Palm Sunday he preaches on Death: the time of death the season of temptation, the time of death the moment of transfiguration, the time of death the time for confession and communion, the time of death the moment of supreme joy, &c.
At the same time he has another series of rural sermons from Septuagesima to the close of Lent, on our Lord’s Passion.
From Easter Day, Hartung preaches upon Heaven: the beauty of the glorified body fills three discourses; he speaks then of the harmony of Heaven, the immutability of the joy, the vastness and beauty of the abode of the redeemed, the delight of the five senses in Heaven, and the thoughts of Heaven.
Throughout Trinity, Hartung preaches upon God. I shall give two sermons of the preacher, the one on Hell, the other on Heaven.
First Sunday after the Epiphany.
Rural Sermon.
On Hell.—I.
The absence of Jesus, the chief woe of the lost.
Luke ii. 48. Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.
1. He loses much who in a moment loses his wealth, as did Job.
He loses more who loses the favour of a king, and the love of an intimate friend, as did Absalom.
He loses more yet who loses himself, as did Ahithophel.
But he loses most who loses Jesus; for he who loses Jesus loses every thing, a treasure above price, the best of friends, the surest of counsellors, his all in all.
“Omnia si perdas, Jesum servare memento,
Ipse tibi Jesus omnia solus erit.”
The names Jesus and Jehovah are very similar, as St. Jerome observes, for what Jehovah signifies, that Jesus is—all in all. Oh! how sweetly does Ambrose exclaim, “Christ is our all.”
Art thou an infant? He is thy mother, her breast, her milk.
Art thou aged? He is thy staff, thy stay.
Art thou a boy? He is thy path, thy way.
Art thou sick? He is thy physician and thy medicine.
Art thou dying? He buries thy soul, not in the bosom of Abraham, but in His own pierced side, and thy body He lays in the field which He purchased for thee at the price of His blood, the field of the Church, His Bride.
Christ is all to us. He who loses Him, loses all. Truly, if Micah could say when his idols were removed, Ye have taken away my gods which I made,—and what have I more? (Judg. xviii. 24;) far more truly may he complain who sees himself deprived of Jesus.
And this will be the chief woe of the damned—that Jesus is irrevocably lost to them. For if He were in hell, it would be no hell, as Heaven without Him would be no Heaven, as the Royal Psalmist exclaims: Whom have I in Heaven but Thee? To be with Jesus, is to be in Paradise, as the poor thief learned, when he was assured that he should be with Jesus, and therefore be in Paradise: To-day shall thou be with Me in Paradise.
To be away from Jesus is to be in hell. Wherefore the sentence of the Judge is: Depart from Me, ye cursed. To be separated from Jesus, and that for ever; ah! that is the malediction of all, that a hell deeper than hell itself.
But how is it that we esteem this loss at so small a price? that we lose Jesus knowingly, wilfully, for a momentary pleasure, for a point of honour, for a nothing at all; and having lost Him, seek Him not sorrowing?
Our own gross ignorance is the cause, readily consenting to sin, and so losing us the dear presence of Jesus.
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2. How great this loss is, and how great a grief arises from this loss, those who have experienced the loss know.
Mary Magdalene saw her beloved Jesus fall seven times beneath the great weight of the cross, she beheld Him hang for three hours upon the cross, she saw Him taken down from the tree and laid in a sepulchre, and yet not one Evangelist says that she shed a single tear. But on the most festive day of the Resurrection, when the angels sang their paschal hallelujah in full choir, when mourning was laid aside for garments white and clean, when the dead themselves rose for joy from their graves, and the dawn blushed a fairer pink than heretofore, and the sun, rejoicing as a giant to run his course, scattered brighter than wonted beams, then Magdalene wept inconsolably, nor deigned to look at the angels who asked, Woman, why weepest thou? for, says the Evangelist, she had bowed down her face to the earth, as though beaten down and crushed beneath the burden of her sorrow.
But why this strange paradox! that she should not weep at the time for tears, and now not laugh at the time for laughter? Magdalene’s answer explains all: They have taken away my Lord. This was her sole and worthy cause of tears—the absence of her Lord. “She wept more,” says Augustine, “because He was removed from the sepulchre, than because He was slain upon the tree.” When He was on the cross, she stood by; when He was entombed, she sat over against the sepulchre; dying she was near Him, risen she was parted from Him—therefore flowed her tears. Truly may St. Bernard say: “So sweet is Jesus to all who taste of Him, so beautiful to all who behold Him, so dear to all who embrace Him, that a little moment of absence is greatest cause of sorrow.” But oh! what will it then be, to lose Him for ever and ever!
3. To this example of a female disciple who loved much, let us add that of a male disciple who loved very much, that from both we may learn what it is to lose Jesus. Peter, inseparable, as it were, from Christ, according to his own testimony, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life,—Peter, I say, when he saw his Master rise from the supper of the law, and gird Himself with the towel, pour water into a basin, and stoop to wash his feet, refused to permit Him to do it: Thou shalt never wash my feet. Oh, Peter! hast thou forgotten thy words to thy Lord: Bid me come to Thee on the water? And why wilt thou not dip thy feet in water when thy Lord cometh to thee? Thou art ready to go with Him to prison and to death, and that thou mayest go the better, He who giveth His angels charge concerning thee, is conforming thy feet that they may bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Ay! He is placing His hands beneath thy feet to bear thee up Himself, lest thou stumble at the stone of stumbling and rock of offence. Why delay? Why shrink back? Why recoil? God loveth not headstrong piety, nor an obstinate self-will! Listen, Peter, to what Christ answers thee: If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me. So many words, so many lightnings! by these Peter is threatened, not with prison and darkness, not with horrors and wretchedness, not with pyres and wheels, but with the absence of Christ Himself, Thou hast no part with Me. . . . Touched by this lightning-stroke, Peter exclaims: Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
4. . . . . .
5. Fatal will be that last sentence: Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. Here observe that the first portion of the sentence refers to expulsion from Christ’s presence as the chief pain of hell. Of which says St. Chrysostom: “This pain is worse than to be tortured in the flames.” And St. Bruno: “Let torments be added to torments, let cruel ministers cruelly rack, let all kinds of scourges increase their severity, but let us not be deprived of God, whose absence would be the worst of tortures.” And that this may be confirmed by the mouths of three witnesses, B. Laurentius Justiniani says, “The interminable want of the beatific vision will excel all other woes.”
Certainly the damned would feel no pain if they could see Jesus. Three children were cast into the burning fiery furnace of Babylon, and they trampled on the flames, they sang among their torments, and called upon all creatures to unite with them in praise. Would you know the reason? We have it from the mouth of the hostile king: Lo! I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. The form, the very image only, of the Son of God was sufficient to remove all power from the fierce element, to turn torment into jubilee, punishment into delight, a furnace into a joke (focum in jocum; a pun), a torturer’s pyre into festive flames. No less would the damned rejoice if they could thus behold the Son of God, and would set at nought fire, hell, and damnation.
6. Oh! if after myriads of years they were given a chance of obtaining one thing from Christ, would they ask of Him any thing else but that which the blind man required—Lord, that I may see? Why did the damned Dives ask that Lazarus might come with a drop of water at the tip of his finger to cool his parched tongue? Why did he not rather demand a refreshing shower, or a pleasant rill of cool water to flow into his throat? It was because he desired the presence of the glorified Lazarus. By that presence all his pains would be relieved, his hell would be turned into Paradise. The longed-for Lazarus is the very Son of God, who suffered poverty at the gate of the rich, asking for a little crumb of comfort, but in vain; rejected by the Jews, the dogs of Gentiles came, and found healing in His wounds.
Now the damned desire of the Father that He should send His Son, who with the finger of God’s right hand, the Holy Spirit, might touch the stream of celestial joys, and let one drop distil into the consuming fire, to refresh the lost for one moment, to give them for one instant a glimpse of the beauty of that radiant countenance. But in vain; in vain they ask, they cry, they weep; they shall see the face of Jesus no more.
The sentence was pronounced against the children of outer darkness when God said, My face will I turn also from them. The hiding of that countenance is the source of all ills. My face will I turn from them! they have set the face of men before them in the place of Mine. They have loved the beauty of human countenances rather than the glory of Mine which is divine. My face will I turn from them! I, who turned not My face from those who spat upon it, and buffeted Me. My face will I turn from them, and My face is as the sun, and they shall never see light; My face, which is the source of all gladness; Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, and they shall be sad; My face, the prospect of beholding which tempers more than did the hopes of possessing Rachel. They shall labour for ever without rest, or solace, or refreshment. And this is the sum of their woes, that Jesus, whom they lost in the way of life, they find not again, and shall not see or grasp through ages evermore.
7. Oh, weeping mother of Jesus! who soughtest Him whom thou hadst lost, through no fault of thine own; by that pain, that anxiety, that aching void thou didst endure through three days when thy Son was absent; keep, I pray thee, thy Jesus and my Jesus in our souls, that we may never lose Him through our grave offence. Rather may the world perish, and all the vanity therein, than that thy Jesus should be lost to us! Rather may health and life, and good report, and fortune, hope and all things perish, if only we may keep Jesus, without whom all things else are nought, for He is all in all.
The Second Sunday after Easter.
Rural Sermon.
On Heaven.—VI.
The unity and concord of the Heaven-dwellers.
John x. 16. There shall be onefold and one shepherd.
1. And when will that happy time at last arrive, when the fold will be but one, and one the Shepherd, so that once more all shall be of one heart and of one soul among those that believe?
Alas! the fold of Christ has ever been broken through: Nicolaitans and Corinthians in apostolic times, then Gnostics, Manichæans, Arians, Donatists. These were followed by Iconoclasts, Albigenses, Hussites and sects of this age, which I will not name[1].
Shall there ever be discord in the faith? Shall we in the same fold be ever severed in heart? . . . Unity is not to be found here: not here, but in Heaven, where the Pastor is one, and the God triune; where the flock is twofold, human and angelic. Of the concord of the blessed shall I now speak. . . .
2. There is not so great a variety among garden flowers or meadow herbs, among forest trees, among fishes of the sea or birds of the air, among meats at a feast or nations upon earth, as there is among the saints. Yet, though so great is the variety, great also is the harmony. The Psalmist, considering the wondrous unity of the saints, breaks forth into praise to God, who maketh men to be of one mind in an house. They have the same will, not as brothers, but as one man, and yet they are of all tribes, and tongues, and nations, and they are a great multitude which no man can number, yet all understand each other, for each can speak all tongues.
The variety of nations, and sexes, and states, and merits, and natures will afford delight. The angels in their three hierarchies, in each of which are three choirs, and in each choir nine mansions; thus are they divided, yet in this great crowd there is no crowding. The limbs are not bound to the body as closely as the elect are united in the bonds of their charity. Why are the members of the body so united? Because, forsooth, they communicate into one spirit. Though their natures may differ, and their offices vary, one soul conciliates them; then how much more will the Divine Spirit, by whom all the elect live, make unity such as this and much more excellent. None will contradict, none contend with, none emulate, none envy another. Without are dogs. In that country there will be no Cain to slay his brother Abel; in that family there will be no Jacob to hate Esau; in that house no Ishmael to contend with Isaac; in that kingdom no Saul to persecute David; in that college no Judas to betray his Master. Hence their exceeding joy. Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity! All will the same thing, for all have but one rule which they observe, the will of God, against which they can rebel no more. .... Wherefore, because it is the will of God that Peter should be greater than James, each will be content, each will rejoice in the joy of the other as though it were his own. Consequently, St. Augustine says, “Each will be glad in the beatitude of another, as much as in his own ineffable joy, and he who has friends has as many joys. Whatever is needful, whatever pleases, is there; all riches, all rest, all solace. For what can be wanting to him where God is, to whom nothing lacks? There, all know God without error, see Him without end, praise Him without fatigue, love Him without fail. And in this delight, all repose full of God; cleaving ever to blessedness, they are blessed; contemplating ever eternity, they are eternal.” See how good and how pleasant! so pleasant, that one day granted in Heaven in the enjoyment of the society of the blessed would be of sufficient value to make us resign all the delights of this life, to make us renounce all evil companionship. One day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. For all joys, all pleasures of this world, as compared to the perennial delight in Heaven flowing from the vision of God and the society of the saints, are but as a drop to the ocean.
3. Man is a social animal, and though he may abound in all, yet if he have not a companion he is not happy. Let a man be shut up in a palace or a garden, and be left alone, he will soon weary of the solitude, and ask to be either let go or to have a companion admitted. God Himself judged this when He saw that it was not well for Adam to be alone, even in Paradise. Seneca said divinely, “The possession of no good is pleasant without a companion.”
God, though He needs none, yet seems to affect society, for He says, My delights were with the sons of men. Indeed, when He designed to form man, He said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let us make, one labour of the Three Persons; and the one work is social man. After our likeness, that as there is plurality of Persons in one Nature, so there might be a plurality of bodies, yet a unity of souls. But this unity will not be perfect, this likeness complete, except in the celestial Paradise, where, says St. John, we shall be like Him; then, indeed, many will be one, and one like all, in the admirable unity of souls. Drexelius ingeniously observes, “God found an admirable art, by which a happy one might make the joys of many myriads his own, and thus each might be hundredfold happy.” The art consists in this, that the thought is deep rooted in each of the blessed ones, a thought sweeter than honey: God loves me intimately and infinitely, and I love God with my whole being; and these all love me, and I love them; eternally shall I be loved, eternally loving. Hence the immense joy which each feels in the other’s happiness. . . . Isaiah beholding this celestial charity, this goodly unity in the land flowing with milk and honey, says, My people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.
Shall sit down (Vulg.), This the position, this the mark of perennial rest. Now we stand and fight till we drop into our graves. . . . In the beauty of peace (Vulg.). Beautiful is that which is perfect; in Heaven peace is most beautiful, for there is it altogether most perfect. In the tabernacles of confidence (Vulg.). When six hundred thousand men went forth out of Egypt, they dwelt in tabernacles, but not in confidence; in tabernacles of fear and anxiety, for the way before them was to be opened by the sword, and the foe was to be dreaded on every side. But in Heaven there is no foe, nothing hostile, no ambushes, no heartburnings; but security and confidence, unity and charity; therefore they sit down in wealthy rest (Vulg.), for they will not only possess what they have hoped for, but more than they hoped for, ay! more than they were capable of hoping for. One possesses what all possess, and therefore they are all of one heart and of one soul.
4. But how will it be, that with such disparity of rewards, there will be no strife and envy? This may best be explained by a simile. If a father had ten sons of different statures, and were to dress them each alike in silk, the smallest would not envy the greatest because his breast was wider, his sleeves fuller, his cloak longer, but would be content with his own little tunic, and would be unwilling to exchange it. So, too, the eldest would be well pleased in the little brother because he was suitably equipped. The same too in a banquet, where each may drink what, and how much, he likes. But St. Augustine has a more graceful simile, taken from the strings of a harp. The strings are of various lengths, but when struck they produce harmony. “The saints will have their own harmonious differences in degrees, just as the sweetest music is that produced by diverse, but not adverse sounds.”
5. He who would attain to this most blessed society, ought to be in the fold of Christ, that one, true, good Church Catholic, which is the fold of Christ, beyond which is neither unity of doctrine nor the bond of the Good Shepherd’s charity.
Secondly, let the Christians who are in this fold learn from the sheep to seek unity. Let them remain closely bound to each other, and not bite each other as dogs, nor rend as wolves, nor kick as horses, nor butt as goats; so, O Christian, abstain from tossing thy neighbour on the horns of pride, injuring him with the bark of envy, rending him with the tooth of detraction; but like a gentle lamb cleave to the Good Shepherd, and thou shalt be of the dear sheep of Christ. For what St. Bonaventura says seraphically, touching the religious state, is to be repeated a thousand times: “There is no greater proof of a man’s predestination, and that he is conforming himself to God, than that he should exhibit himself to be gentle and patient,” and I add, that he should show his love for concord and unity.
I think that no one can peruse these two sermons,
which I have given almost entire, curtailing them but
slightly, without being convinced of the overflowing
charity and deep-seated piety of the holy man who
wrote them. Whatever there may be of crudity in the
style, every thought gushes from the pure spring of the
love of God, open and flowing in the heart of the good Jesuit. He that believeth on Me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, may justly be applied to Philip von
Hartung. Many and many a rill of the water of Life
may be lighted on in the garden of delights contained
in his volumes. Often, perhaps, the water is discoloured, but more often is it limpid and crystalline as
when it leaped out of the fount of God.
In style Hartung resembles the more earnest preachers of dissent, because he speaks from the heart. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. If our preachers had the zeal and the love of God which was found among the great Catholic orators, and is still to be discovered among dissenting ministers, there would be fewer complaints of the barrenness of the land, less deadness to the calls of God in professed Church-goers. It is quite impossible for a preacher to effect the slightest good unless he feels what he says from the depths of his soul; it is hopeless for him to expect to draw hearts to the love of Jesus, if he knows not what that love is. And the sermon, however eloquent and finished in style, will never convert sinners, unless its inspiration is derived from God; and that inspiration can alone be obtained by prayer.
He who prays much is filled with a power of winning souls quite inexplicable; he sheds a sort of magnetic influence upon hearts, drawing them to Christ; and, though the words be few and ill-chosen, they can do a work for God which the most polished masterpiece of elocution would be powerless to effect.
I think the story is told of Francis Borgia, that he was asked to preach at a certain church in a distant city. On his arrival he was too ill to speak, and he requested some one to occupy his place. “No!” said the priest who had summoned him; “only mount the pulpit, say nothing, and come away.” He did so; hearts were touched, people burst into tears, and the confessionals were filled with penitents. He was a man of Prayer.
Footnotes[edit]
- ↑ Notice the gentle and loving spirit of the Jesuit here; he avoids giving offence without retiring from his position.