De arte praedicatoria

If the preacher wishes to invite his hearers to hope for the things of heaven, and to hold them back from hope in earthly things, he should use authorities that promote this hope, and draw the mind back from that other hope. For example: Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm.¹ Likewise: How difficult it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of heaven?² And elsewhere: It is better to hope in the Lord, than to hope in princes.³ Likewise: Cast your care upon the Lord, and he will sustain you.⁴ Likewise: Hope in the Lord, and do good.⁵ From these authorities one should proceed thus: The hope of earthly things tends toward future wishes, and consumes joys before they arrive. This gnaws at the mind through excessive anxiety, because fear troubles hope, sells away joys yet to come, and stretches desire into infinity. O man, who lean upon earthly things, trusting in what is uncertain, you rest upon a reed staff, which easily breaks! do not, then, trust in what is fragile and slippery, quickly falls, and destroys you. Set your mind rather in the cloud of adversity, than in the clear sky of prosperity. If you set your hope in earthly prosperity, it is deceptive and seductive; when you have grasped it, you will not find what you had hoped for. You will learn from the sign that hope should not be placed on what is slippery: why do you hope for what you will not be able to hold for long, where you will not find what you believe, where there is less delight in the experience? nor will you only fail to find in those things what you hoped for, but rather you will find tinder for guilt, tinder for ruin, a snare for the soul, leaven against justice. Direct your hope rather toward tribulations, which, although they show bitterness on the outside, nevertheless produce, in a constant mind, the sweetness of heavenly hope; nor will anyone enjoy the sweetness of the fruit of patience who has not been pierced by the bitterness of tribulation. For tribulation is a furnace that refines gold, a file that polishes iron, a flail by which the grain is separated from the chaff. In this warfare of tribulation, patience is exercised, fortitude does battle, constancy is strengthened, hope is invited toward the things of heaven. Let the anchor of hope, then, rather be fixed in the harbor of salvation, in the mercy of the Savior. For this hope does not disappoint but restores, it illuminates and does not blind, where more is found than what is sought, or than hope can grasp; where more comes about than hope can understand; where hope does not use up joy, where desire does not diminish joy: for which reason desire expects nothing further, where hope fixes its step.

Oh, how happy is that heavenly hope, which fear does not overcome, in which fear does not foretell false things, where desire does not dream of the unheard-of, but charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,⁶ to the belief or hope of which the boundary of reason invites us. What fear could weaken the human mind, if heavenly hope pleads for it before God? What harm will the lightning-bolts of tyrants do, the precipices of fortune, the infirmities of the body, the din of poverty, if the mind is fortified by heavenly hope? This is the hope that governs communities; it directs actions. This is what establishes the height in charity, so that we may direct our actions toward God; this is what extends the breadth in charity, so that we may extend it even to our enemy. This is what stretches out the length in charity, so that we may persevere in it to the end of life. Between this hope and fear, as between two millstones, the Christian, gentle and delicate, ought to be ground. Whence it is said in Deuteronomy: You shall not take the upper or the lower millstone as a pledge.⁷ The upper millstone is hope; the lower, fear; for the one is not to be taken without the other. For he who hopes and does not fear is negligent; but he who fears and does not hope is cast down.