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THE CURE OF MELANCHOY & OVERMUCH SORROW

BY FAITH

by Richard Baxter

FROM SWORD & TROWEL 2003 No 4

Lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow (2 Corinthians 2.7)

THIS EXAMPLE of Puritan insight and wisdom in dealing with ‘melancholy’ is here modernised and abridged. A classic expression of the Puritan pastoral method, it is of incalculable value to spiritual shepherds today. (Somewhat incidental and clearly dated ‘medical’ comments have been omitted.)

Richard Baxter’s famous sermon is from the series of Puritan discourses known as the Cripplegate Morning Exercise. We may well marvel at the depth and scope of practical counsel here, and at the attention span of the privileged hearers. It appears in the edition of Baxter’s Practical Works (volume 4) from Soli Deo Gloria publications.

The Cripplegate Morning Exercise was a sermon series arranged in 1661 by Dr Samuel Annesley, Rector of St Giles, Cripplegate, in the City of London. He engaged numerous fellow Puritans (including Thomas Manton, Thomas Watson and Matthew Poole) to deal with ‘cases of conscience practically resolved’.

Richard Baxter lived from 1615 to 1691. Always in poor health, he endured a deep encounter with ‘melancholy’ or depression in his middle years. His outstanding period of ministry ran from 1640-1660, years chiefly spent at Kidderminster.

In 1662 with so many other Puritan preachers he was ejected from the Church of England under the notorious Act of Uniformity. Falsely charged in 1685 by the enemies of the Gospel with preaching sedition, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Baxter wrote over 100 works, some of which, such as A Christian Directory, The Reformed Pastor, and The Saints’ Everlasting Rest are among the greatest classics of spiritual literature.

1. OVERMUCH SORROW DEFINED

It is all too evident that overmuch sorrow for sin is not the normal situation in human society. An insensible disposition is the cause of men’s perdition. The plague of a hard heart and a seared conscience keeps most from all sense of sin, or of danger or misery, and from any concern for their guilty souls. O how sleepily and senselessly do people hear of the great work of man’s redemption by Christ, and of the need of justifying and sanctifying grace! When we preach or talk to them of the greatest things, with the greatest evidence, plainness and earnestness, we speak as to the dead. They have ears, and hear not. One would think from their senseless neglect that they were asleep! They acknowledge that they must die; they lay their friends in the grave, and all this while remain in a dream. If only we could awaken sinners that they would come to themselves and think differently about these great things!

A hardened heart is a great part of the sickness of the unregenerate, while a soft and tender heart is the product of the new nature. Indeed, many awakened souls think they can never have too much sorrow, and that their danger lies in hardheartedness. They do not fear excessive sorrow until it has swallowed them up. Some think that the best Christians are those who are most in doubts, fears and sorrows, speaking only of their pain and misery, but this is a great mistake.

Sorrow is overmuch, first, when it is fed by a mistaken cause. (And great sorrow is too much when the cause requires less.) If a person thinks that something is a duty which is no duty, and then sorrows over omitting it, such sorrow is too much, and caused by error. I have known many who have been greatly troubled because they could not bring themselves to that length of private prayer for which they had neither ability nor time. I have known others likewise troubled because they could not bring themselves to reprove sin in others, when prudent instruction or a gentle hint was more suitable than reproof. Many are troubled because in their shops and trades they think of things other than the Lord, as if our outward business requires no thinking!

Superstition also breeds such sorrows - when people make for themselves religious duties which God never made for them, and then come short in the performance of them. Many dark souls are assaulted through such errors. Many fearful Christians are troubled about every meal that they eat, about their clothes, their thoughts, and words, thinking or fearing that all is sinful, and that unavoidable infirmities are heinous sins. All such troubles and sorrows are without just cause, and are therefore overmuch.

Sorrow is overmuch, secondly, when it hurts and overwhelms nature itself, and destroys bodily health and understanding. Just as civil, church, and domestic government are for edification and not for destruction, so also is personal self-government. God will have mercy and not sacrifice. Just as He would not have us kill or hurt our neighbour on pretence of religion, so He would not have us destroy or hurt ourselves. Remember that He has commanded us to love our neighbour as ourselves.

Just as fasting is a duty with a specific purpose, namely to do some good, and to express or exercise true humiliation, or to mortify some lust, so also sorrow for sin has the same specific purpose. It is too much when it does more harm than good.

2 DAMAGE OF MELANCHOLY

When sorrow swallows up the sinner, it is overmuch, and it must be restrained. This is necessary for the following reasons:-

1 Grief and trouble of mind often overthrow the sober and sound use of reason, so that a person’s judgement is spoiled and twisted by them, and is not able to be trusted. Like a person in raging anger, so one in fear or great trouble of mind does not think of things as they are, but as passion represents them. Whether thinking about God and religion, about the state of his own soul, about his actions, or about his friends or enemies, the judgement of the excessively troubled person is usually perverted and false. Like one with an inflamed eye, he thinks all things are the same colour as his eye.

2 Overmuch sorrow disables the control of thinking, and ungoverned thoughts must be both sinful and very troublesome. Grief carries them away as in a torrent. You may almost as easily keep the leaves of trees in quietness and order in a blustering wind, as the thoughts of one with troubled emotions. If reason wants to stop them dwelling on perplexing subjects, or turn them to better and sweeter things, it cannot do it; it has no power against the stream of troubling emotions.

3 Overmuch sorrow swallows up faith itself, and greatly hinders its exercise. The Gospel calls us to gratefully believe matters of inexpressible joy, but it is hard for a grieved, troubled soul to believe that anything is a matter of joy. Though it dare not flatly contradict God, sorrow barely believes His free and full promises, and His readiness to receive all penitent, returning sinners.

4 Overmuch sorrow also hinders hope, especially when people believe God’s Word, and are sure that His promises are true for others, but cannot believe that the promised blessings are for them. Hope is that grace by which a soul who believes the Gospel to be true expects that the promised benefits shall be his own.

Hope is an applying act. Faith says, ‘I will trust my soul upon the promises of the Gospel, and take Christ for my Saviour and help.’ Then hope says, ‘I joyfully anticipate this salvation from Him.’ Depressed feelings, however, with all their overwhelming sorrow and trouble, are as great an adversary to this hope as water is to fire. Despair is their very pulse and breath.

All the thoughts of depressed believers are suspicious and misgiving, and they can see nothing but danger, misery, and hopelessness in their condition. When hope, which is the anchor of the soul, is gone, small wonder they are continually tossed with storms.

5 Overmuch sorrow swallows up all comforting sense of the infinite goodness and love of God, and consequently hinders the soul from loving Him. In this it is an enemy of the very life of godliness. It is hard for such a troubled soul to apprehend the goodness of God to him. A man in the desert, scorched with the heat of the sun, and ready to die from drought and weakness, may admit that the sun is the life of the earth and a blessing to mankind, but it is misery and death to him. Even so, souls who are overwhelmed with grief may confess that God is good to others, but still regard Him as an enemy to them. They may think He hates them, and has forsaken them. And how can they love a God Who (they think) hates them, and is resolved to damn them, and has brought them into the world for no other end?

6 It clearly follows that this condition is an incompetent judge of the Word and works of God, as well as of His providences and corrections. Whatever an afflicted soul reads or hears from God’s Word, he thinks it is all directed against him. Every threatening word in Scripture he thinks refers to him as clearly as if it named him. But the promises of Scripture he thinks he has no part in as certainly as if he had been excluded by name.

7 Because of these effects, we can see that overmuch sorrow is also an enemy to thankfulness. It even reproaches God for His mercies, as if they were injuries, or as if God describes them in His Word merely to tantalize and torment the one who cannot have them.

8 And by all this we see that this condition is also contrary to joy in the Holy Ghost, and the peace which God’s kingdom brings to the redeemed. Nothing seems joyful to sorely distressed souls. Delighting in God and in His Word and ways is the flower and life of true religion, but these sufferers can delight in nothing. They do God’s will as a sick man eats his food - out of mere necessity, and even with some degree of loathing.

9 And all this shows us that this disease is altogether against the very tenor of the Gospel. Christ came as a deliverer of the captives; a Saviour to reconcile us to God, and to bring us glad tidings of pardon and everlasting joy. But all that Christ has done, purchased, offered, and promised, seems to be nothing but a matter of doubt and sadness to the sufferers of this disease.

10 Furthermore, it is a condition which greatly enables Satan to cast in blasphemous thoughts about God, suggesting that He is bad, and a hater and destroyer of all who would please Him. The design of the devil is to represent God to be like himself. Low thoughts of God and of His goodness and greatness are sins which greatly injure Him.

11 Overmuch sorrow upsets all profitable meditation, for it confounds thoughts, and turns them to hurtful distractions. Such sorrow turns prayer from childlike, believing supplications into mere complaints. It often renders preaching and counsel ineffective, no matter how convincingly it may be presented.

12 It is a disease which makes all other sufferings more heavy, for they fall upon a poor, diseased soul which is lacking any other comforts to relieve the blows. Overmuch sorrow makes death terrible, because sufferers think of it as the gate of hell. They become weary of living, and afraid of dying. In all these ways overmuch sorrow swallows up a sufferer.

3 THE CAUSES OF MELANCHOLY

What are the causes of melancholy and overmuch sorrow? With very many sufferers there is a great part of the cause in weakness and in disease of the body, and as a result the soul is greatly disabled. But the more the problem stems from such natural causes, the less sinful it is, and the less dangerous to the soul. Nevertheless, it is very troublesome.

Three diseases cause overmuch sorrow. First, those that involve greater pain than human strength can bear. However, because the duration of the distress so caused is not usually very long, this cause will not now be addressed.

Secondly, overmuch sorrow may be due to a ‘natural passionateness’, and a weakness of the faculty of reason, which should restrain passion. This is too frequently the case with elderly people who are so much enfeebled that they are very apt to take offence, and to suffer strong feelings of anger. Children also cannot control their crying when they are hurt.

But this natural passionateness is most troublesome and hurtful to many women (and some men) who are too easily troubled, and have very little power over their feelings. This includes many who fear God, and who have very sound intellects, yet who have almost no power against troubling passions, anger, grief, and especially fear. Their natural mood is a strong disease of apprehension, sorrow, fear, and displeasure. They that are not sorrowful, are yet of so childish and impatient a temper that one thing or other is either unsettling, grievous, or frightening to them. Every sad story, or item of news, or noise alarms them; and just as children must have all that they cry for before they will be quiet, so is it with too many such people.

The situation is very hard for those around them, but much more for themselves. To dwell with the sick in the house of mourning is less uncomfortable. But as long as reason is not overthrown, the case is not without remedy, nor wholly excusable.

A third cause of overmuch sorrow may be the overthrow of the reason -the mind - by a disease, so that the imagination seems crazed. This makes the cure yet more difficult. Commonly it is the previously mentioned persons, whose natural mood is fearful and tense, and who are inclined to discontentedness and misery, who eventually fall into a seriously sick state, and then the combination of natural mood and sickness increases the misery. The signs of this more serious ‘diseasing melancholy’ are these:-

1 The trouble of the mind has become a settled condition. Sufferers can see nothing but trouble. All that they hear or do feeds it. Danger is constantly before their eyes. All that they read works against them. They can delight in nothing. Fearful dreams trouble them when they sleep, and distracted thoughts keep them long awake. It offends them to see another laugh. They hardly believe that anyone else shares their condition. They have no pleasure in relations, friends, possessions, or anything.

They think that God has forsaken them, and that the day of grace is past, and there is no more hope. They say they cannot pray, but only howl, and groan, and God will not hear them. They will not believe that they have any sincerity and grace. They say they cannot repent, and cannot believe, but that their hearts are utterly hardened. Usually, they are afraid lest they have committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. In a word, fears, troubles, and despair are the constant temper of their minds.

2 If you convince them that they have some evidences of sincerity, and that their fears are causeless and injurious to themselves, though they make no protest at your encouragements, yet these either relieve none of their trouble, or else it returns the very next day, for the cause of the trouble remains in their bodily disease. Quieten them a hundred times, and their fears a hundred times return.

3 Their misery is that they cannot help thinking their melancholy thoughts. You may as well persuade a man not to shake in a fever, or not to feel pain when hurt, as persuade these sufferers to put away their self- troubling thoughts. They cannot get them out of their heads night or day. Tell them that they must avoid long periods of reflection which disturb them, and they cannot. Tell them that they must cast false imaginations out of their minds and turn their thoughts to something else, and they cannot do it. Their thoughts, troubles and fears, are out of their power to control.

4 When they have become as bad as this, usually they seem to feel something or someone besides themselves, speaking in them, saying this or that to them, and bidding them to do this or that. They will tell you when and what has been said to them, and they will not easily accept that this is the product of their imagination.

5 In this case sufferers are very prone to think they have revelations. Whatever comes into their minds, they think some revelation brought it to them. They say, ‘This text of Scripture at such a time was put into my mind.’ The sense in which they take texts is usually false, or a false application of them is made to themselves. Some sufferers are prone to having prophecies, and believe that God has told them this or that, until they see that it does not come to pass, and then they are ashamed. Some sufferers turn heretic, and take up errors in religion, believing that God set such things upon their minds. Some of them who were long troubled get quietness and joy by such changes of their opinions, thinking that now they are in God’s way (which they were out of for so long) and so they have received comfort.

6 Sadly, many sufferers of the better sort, when they experience words and thoughts being ‘given to them’, become convinced that they are possessed by the devil, of which I will say more shortly.

7 Most of them are violently haunted with blasphemous thoughts, at which they tremble, and yet cannot keep them out of their minds. Either they are tempted to doubt the Scripture, or Christianity, or the life to come, or to think some ill of God. Often they are urged, as if by something in them, to speak some blasphemous word about God, or to renounce Him, and they tremble at the suggestion, and yet it still follows them. And some poor souls, as soon as the blasphemy is spoken, feel certain that their damnation is sealed, and that they have sinned against the Holy Ghost.

8 When their condition is very advanced, they may be tempted to vow never to speak or eat again, and some have even starved to death.

9 Furthermore, they may think that they have apparitions, or even such experiences as lights in the night shining about their beds. Sometimes they are certain that they hear voices, and feel something touch or hurt them.

10 They fly from company, and can do nothing but sit alone and muse.

11 They leave off all business, and will not be persuaded to apply themselves to work.

12 When their condition reaches its worst, they become tired of life itself and are strongly persuaded to do away with themselves; which too many have done.

13 And if they escape this particular urge, they nevertheless become totally diverted away from reality.

These are the sad symptoms and effects of overmuch sorrow. How desirable, therefore, it is to prevent them, and cure them while the condition is only beginning, and before they reach such a state!

We do not deny that Satan has a great hand in the case of deeply depressed persons, for, as a tempter, he is the cause of sinful and troublesome thoughts, doubts, fears and passions which the melancholy mood causes. However, the presence of sinful thoughts (or deeds) does not indicate that Satan has possession of a person’s soul. It is no certain sign of a graceless state. The presence of sin only proves that Satan possesses a person’s soul if that person loves the sin more than he hates it, and would rather keep it than lose it. [Note: This pithy tenet is a recurring and pivotal observation in Baxter’s counselling of melancholy souls.] This is matter of great comfort to suffering souls, if they have but understanding to receive it. Of all men, none love their sin (which they groan under) so little as true believers do. It is the heavy burden of their souls.

Do you love your unbelief, your fears, your distracted thoughts, your temptations to blasphemy? Would you rather keep them, than be delivered from them? The fornicator, the drunkard, the gambler, the time-wasting playboys that sit for hours at cards and plays, the gluttonous pleasers of their appetites - all these love their sins, and do not wish to leave them.

Just as Esau sold his birthright for one morsel, they will accept the loss of God, of Christ, and their souls, and Heaven, rather than leave a sin. But is this your case? Do you so love your sad condition? No! You are weary of it, and heavy-laden. It is the devil’s way, if he can, to haunt with troubling temptations those whom he cannot overcome with damning temptations.

The devil cannot do what he will with us, but he can do what we give him opportunity to do. He cannot break open our doors, but he can enter if we leave them open. He can easily tempt a heavy, apathetic person to sloth, a sensitive and irritable person to anger, a strong and sanguine person to lust, and an insubstantial, playful person to entertainment and sensual experiment, when to other ‘types’ of person such temptations would have small strength. If, therefore, Satan can cast you into deep gloom, he may easily tempt you to overmuch sorrow and fear, and to distracting doubts and thoughts against God, then on to despair, and even to blasphemous thoughts of God; or perhaps even to fanatical conceits of revelation.

God will not impute the guilt of temptations (no matter how bad) to the tempted person, but He will impute that guilt to Satan, the tempter, as long as you receive them not, by the will, but hate them. Nor will He condemn the melancholy person for those ill effects which are unavoidable from the power of a bodily disease.

4 THE CAUSES OF BLAMEWORTHY MELANCHOLY

Besides bodily disease or natural proneness, one of the most common causes of melancholy is sinful impatience, discontent, and anxiety which proceeds from a sinful love of some physical, fleshly, material interest, and from a lack of sufficient submission to the will of God, or trust in Him, and from a failure to embrace Heaven as a satisfying portion. I will therefore expand on the parts of this sin, which brings many into dismal melancholy.

It is presupposed that God tries His servants in this life with manifold afflictions, and Christ will have us bear the cross and follow Him in submissive patience. Accordingly, some are tried with painful diseases, and some are wronged by enemies, and some hurt by the unkindness of friends, and some tried with perverse, antagonistic relatives or colleagues, and some with slanders, and some with persecution, and many with losses, disappointments, and shortages. Under these trials, impatience sets in motion the operation of the sinful malady of melancholy. Our natures are all too mindful of the interests of the flesh, and too weak in bearing heavy burdens. Impatience soon turns into a settled discontent and a grumbling spirit, which then lies all day as a load on the heart.

The root cause of all this is the worst part of the sin. It is - too much love to the body and to this world. If things were not overloved, they would have no power to torment us. If ease and health were not overloved, pain and sickness would be more tolerable. If children and friends were not overloved, the death of them would not overwhelm us with inordinate sorrow. If the body were not overloved, and worldly wealth and prosperity over-valued, it would be comparatively easy to endure hard circumstances and labour and need.

In addition to this wrongly placed love, there is the problem of our wills, which are too selfish, and not in proper submission to the will of God. We want to choose for ourselves. This shows that we are not sufficiently humbled for our sin, or else we would be thankful for the lowest state as being much better than we deserved. There is also apparently much distrust of God, and unbelief in these troubling discontents and cares.

Another great cause of trouble of mind is the guilt of some great and wilful sin, when conscience is convinced, and yet the soul is not purged. Some believers live in secret fleshly lusts, and the rage of appetite and lust prevails. Though the sparks fall on their consciences, these change neither heart nor practice. There is more hope of the recovery of these than there is of unbelieving sinners, who have no shame, and who are blind to their sins. But still their sorrow for sin is too little so long as it fails to restrain them from their sin.

When people who are truly converted play with the bait, and renew the wounds of their consciences by their lapses, it is no wonder if their sorrow and terrors are renewed. Grievous sins have so fastened on to the consciences of many as to cast them into deep melancholy and distraction.

There is yet another cause of melancholy and overmuch sorrow, and that is - mistakes in matters of assurance. Many are mistaken about the place of sorrow for sin. They think that if their sorrow does not greatly afflict them and bring them to tears they are not able to be pardoned, even though they believe and embrace the atoning blood of Christ and the blessings of the Gospel. They do not realise that it is not so much the sorrow that God delights in, as the throwing down of a person’s pride, and the humbling sense of sin, and need of Christ and His mercy, and that these should bring the person to wholeheartedly want to be His disciple. Whether sorrow is little or much, if it achieves these objectives the sinner will be saved.

As for hardness of heart, in Scripture it refers to a stiff, rebellious obstinacy, that will not be moved from sin to obedience by any of God’s commands or threats. It never refers to a mere lack of tears or passionate sorrow in a man who is willing to obey. The hard-hearted are the rebellious.

Many are cast down by ignorance of themselves, not appreciating the degree of sincerity which God has given them. Holiness and growth are weak in the best of us, and weak growth is not very easily perceived. Being joined with strong corruption it is obscured.

People who are unskilful in examining and watching their heart, and keeping its accounts - how can they have any great assurance of their own sincerity? If they get some assurance, then their constant neglect of duty, or yielding to temptation, or their inconsistent obedience, will make them question their standing all over again. A sad and melancholy frame of mind is always apt to conclude the worst, and is with difficulty persuaded to see anything that is good and encouraging. Also, in the case of sufferers from melancholy moods, there are too few that know how to draw comfort from bare probabilities, when they lack absolute certainty. These find no comfort in God’s offers of grace and salvation, even though they are willing to accept them.

Some melancholy souls increase their fears because they compare themselves with other, more established Christians. They think, on account of our preaching and writing, that we are much better than we are; and then they think that they are graceless, because they come short of our supposed measures. If they dwelt with us, and saw our failings, or knew us as well as we know ourselves, they would be cured of this error.

5 THE CURE OF MELANCHOLY

I have told you the causes of distracted sorrows. I am now to tell you what is the cure, and I shall begin where the disease begins, and tell you both what the patient himself must do, and what must be done by his friends and teachers.

First, look not on the sinful part of your troubles either as better or worse than it really is. Too many people in their sufferings and sorrows think they are only to be pitied, and take little notice of the sin that caused their condition, or of the sin that they continue to commit. To make matters worse, too many unskilled friends and ministers only comfort them, when a firm correction of their sin would be the better course for a cure. If the sufferers were more aware how much sin there is in their overvaluing the world, and not trusting God, as well as in their hard thoughts of Him, and their unholy thoughts of His goodness, and their undervaluing the heavenly glory (which should satisfy them in the most afflicted state), this would do more to cure some than words of comfort.

On the other hand, some melancholy people make their sins appear worse than they are, thinking that they are marks of a graceless state, and also that God will take the devil’s temptations as their sins, and condemn them for that which they abhor. They think that God will take their very disease of melancholy for a crime. This opinion needs refutation and rejection to stop them keeping distress alive by such errors.

Secondly, sufferers must be urged not to give way to a habit of peevish impatience. We ask - Did you not reckon on sufferings, and on bearing the cross, when you first gave yourselves up to Christ? Should you now think it strange? Expect them, and make it your daily study to prepare for any trial that God may bring you to, and then it will not surprise you and overwhelm you. Prepare for loss, slander, injury, sickness, pain, and death. It is your unreadiness that makes things seem insufferable. Whoever or whatever may be the instrument of your sufferings, it is God Who tries you by them; and when you think that you are only angry with men, you are really guilty of murmuring against God and His overruling hand.

Ministers and others must particularly labour to stir the conscience of the sufferer over continuing in a fixed state of discontent and ingratitude. We must ask: Have you not got much better than you deserve? Do you forget how many years you have enjoyed undeserved mercy? Discontent is a continued resistance of God’s overruling will, and even rebellion against it. Your own will rises up against the will of God. It is atheistic to think that your sufferings are not allowed by His providence; and dare you complain against God? And when you feel distracting cares, remember that this is a failure to trust God. Be concerned to do your duty and to obey His commands, but leave it to Him to determine what you shall have. Tormenting cares only add to your afflictions. Your Father knows what you need; and if He deny it you, it is for just cause. If you submit to Him, He will give you much better than He takes from you.

Thirdly, sufferers must strive more diligently than ever to overcome inordinate love of the world. It will be a happy use of all your troubles if you can follow them up to the fountain, and find out what it is that you cannot bear the lack or loss of, and consequently what it is that you overlove. God is very jealous against every idol that is loved too much. If He took them all away and tore them out of our hands and hearts, it would be merciful as well as just. Love goes before desire and grief. Whatever people love, they delight in if they get it, and mourn for lack of it. The will is the same as the love. No one is troubled over lack of that which he does not want.

The commonest initial causes of emotional sorrow are worldly discontent, or the fear of suffering, or the provocation of relatives, or disgrace, or contempt. This comes first; then, when the discontent has muddied and diseased the mind, temptations come in afterwards; and that which began only with worldly trials, later seems to be all about religion, conscience, or lack of assurance.

Why could you not patiently bear the words, the losses, the crosses which befell you? Why did you make so much of these bodily, transitory things? Is it not because you overloved them? Were you not sincere when (at your conversion) you called them vanity, and promised to leave them to the will of God? If God did not teach you what not to love, and cure you of so dangerous a disease as a fleshly, earthly mind, He would not be able to sanctify you, and fit you for Heaven. Godly souls love God and Heaven, holy company, holy works, and the joyful praises of the Lord. It is this spirit and love which carries them heavenward. Angels do not convey them there by force, but they conduct them as a bride to her marriage, for she is carried all the way by love.

If you are not satisfied that God alone, Christ alone, Heaven alone, is enough for you for fullest happiness, then study the case better so that you may be convinced. Learn to lay up treasure in Heaven, and not on earth, and to know that it is best to be with Christ; and that death, which sweeps away all the glory of the world, and levels rich and poor, is the door equally to Heaven or hell.

If there could be shame in Heaven, you would be ashamed when you arrived there, that you whined and murmured for lack of anything that the flesh desired upon earth, and went there grieving because your bodies suffered here. Study more to live by faith, and hope in the promised glory with Christ, and you will patiently endure any sufferings along the way.

Study also to appreciate how great a sin it is to set our own wills and desires in a discontented opposition to the wisdom, will, and providence of God, thereby making our wills gods to ourselves. Does not a murmuring heart secretly accuse God? All contention with God’s providence has blasphemy in it, for the complainer supposes that God is somewhat to be blamed, and if you would not dare open your mouths to accuse Him, let not the thoughts of your hearts accuse Him. Realise how much this rebellious self-will must be brought to full submission and conformity to the will of God. Till you can rest in God’s will you will never have rest.

Study well how great a duty it is to trust God and our Redeemer, both with soul and body, and all we have. Is not infinite power, wisdom, and goodness to be trusted? Is not a Saviour, Who came from Heaven to save sinners, to be trusted? In whom else will you trust? Will you trust in yourselves, or your friends? Who is it Who has kept you all your lives, and done all for you that is done? Who is it Who has saved all the souls now in Heaven? What is our Christianity but a life of faith?

Is this faith - to distract yourselves with care and troubles if God does not arrange His providences to suit your wills? Seek first His kingdom and righteousness, and He has promised that all other things shall be added to you, and not a hair of your head shall perish. Believe God, and trust Him, and your cares, and fears, and griefs will vanish.

If you do not want to be swallowed up with sorrow, swallow not the baits of sinful pleasure. All sin has its degree of guilt, but it is pleasing sin that is the most dangerous and deep-wounding sin to you. Run from the baits of lust, pride, ambition, covetousness, and an unruly appetite (to drink or eat) as you would run from grief and terror.

The more pleasure you have in sin, usually the more sorrow it will bring you. The more you know something is sinful, and the more conscience tells you that God is against it, the sharper will conscience afflict you afterwards, and the harder will it be to calm once it is awakened to repentance. The memory of the wilfulness of sinning will make us so displeased and angry with ourselves that we may not get a speedy peace.

6 MEASURES FOR EXTREME CASES

If melancholy is already advanced, then there are additional remedies to be used. The difficulty is now great, because the disease makes sufferers preoccupied with themselves, unreasonable, wilful and unruly, and they will not easily be persuaded that their melancholy is an illness of their bodies. But supposing that some use of reason remains, I will give some further counsel for them, and what they cannot do, their friends must do for them and be their help and strength. Here is the further counsel I shall advance:-

1 Consider that your present evaluation of things is not as sound and reliable as that of other people, and therefore do not be wilful and self-conceited, and do not think that your views are superior to theirs, but believe wiser people, and be ruled by them. Do you know any minister or friend who is wiser than yourself? If you say no, how foolishly proud you are! If you say yes, then ask that minister or friend what he thinks of your condition, and believe him, and be ruled by him, rather than by your own suffering and confused mind.

2 Weigh this matter: Do you find that your troubles do you good or harm? Do they make you more or less fit to believe and love God, and to rejoice in Him and praise Him? If you feel that they are against all that is good, you may be sure that they are in line with the devil’s temptations, and are pleasing to him. Will you therefore cherish and help the work of Satan, when it is against yourself and God?

3 Avoid your musings, and do not exercise your thoughts too deeply, nor too much in your present state. Long meditation is a duty to some, but not to you, any more than it is a person’s duty to go to church who has his leg broken. He must rest and ease it until it is set again, and better. You can live in the faith and fear of God without giving yourself to deep, disturbing thoughts. Those who will not obey this counsel must be roused from their painful reflection by their friends and called off to something else.

4 You must not be much alone, but always in some pleasing, cheerful company. Loneliness nurtures and encourages gloomy reflection. Nor must you spend long in private prayer, but spend time in public prayer with others.

5 Let your thoughts be given to the most excellent things. Do not let them pore over your own affairs, or your problems, where they will find nothing but trouble. As millstones wear out if they grind without corn, so do thoughts when grinding on nothing but their own hearts. If you have any power over your thoughts, force them to think most of these four things:

(a) The infinite goodness of God, Who is fuller of love than the sun is of light.

(b) The immeasurable love of Christ in man’s redemption, and the sufficiency of His sacrifice and merits.

(c) The free covenant and offer of grace, which gives pardon and life to all who do not prefer the pleasure of sin, nor obstinately refuse it to the end.

(d) The inconceivable glory and joy which all believers have with Christ, and which God has promised with His oath and seal to all that consent to the covenant of grace, and are willing to be saved and ruled by Christ.

6 Do not let yourself become accustomed to complaining talk, but speak most of the great mercies of God which you have received. Dare you deny them? Are His mercies not more worthy of your words than your present sufferings? Do not let everyone know about your troubles, because complaining only feeds more troubles. Reveal them to none but your confidential counsellors and friends. Instead, speak much of the love of God, and the riches of grace, and this will divert and sweeten your sourer thoughts.

7 When you pray, be determined to spend most of your time in thanksgiving and praising God. If you cannot do it with the joy that you should, yet do it as you can. You do not have control of your feelings at present, but you do have power over your tongue.

Do not say that you are unfit for thanks and praises while you do not have a feelingful, praising heart; for every man, good and bad, is bound to praise God, and to be thankful for all that he has received, and to do it as well as he can. Doing it as you can is the way to be able to do it better. Thanksgiving stirs up thankfulness in the heart. From your very objection you ought to perceive what the devil seeks to achieve. He would turn you away from all thankfulness to God, and from the very mention of His love and goodness in your praises.

8 When vexatious or blasphemous thoughts are thrust into your mind by Satan, give them no scope or room, nor even be excessively troubled by them. Use the reason that is left you to resolutely cast them out, and turn your thoughts to other things. Do not say, ‘I cannot.’ If you can do nothing else, rise up and find some company or some task to occupy you, which will divert and take up your thoughts.

Tell me what you would do if you heard an abusive person in the street shouting insults at you, or heard an atheist talk against God. Would you stand still to hear them, or would you argue with them, or rather go from them, and refuse to hear them or debate the matter? Do you, when Satan casts in ugly or despairing or murmuring thoughts, go away from them to some other thoughts or business? If you cannot do this yourself, tell your friend when the temptation comes; and it is his duty who has care of you to divert you with some other talk or words, or force you into diverting company.

At the same time, do not be too troubled at the temptation, for trouble of mind keeps the evil matter in your memory, and so increases it, just as the pain of a sore draws the blood and inflames the spot. The design of Satan is to give you troubling thoughts, and then use these to cause even more troubles. And so, one thought and trouble causes another, and that another, and so on, as waves in the sea follow each other. When you feel such thoughts, thank God that Satan cannot force you to love them, or consent to them. Remember what a comfortable evidence you carry about with you, that your sin is not damning because you do not love it, but hate it, and are weary of it. No unsaved person has so little pleasure in his sin as the depressed believer, nor so little desire to hold on to it.

9 Be sure that you do not live in idleness or inactivity, but in some constant business, so far as you have bodily strength. Idleness is but the devil’s home for temptation, and for unprofitable, distracted musings. Both soul and body need labour. Six days must you labour, and must not eat ‘the bread of idleness’ (Proverbs 31.27). God has made it our duty, and will bless us in His appointed way. I have known grievous, despairing melancholy cured and turned into a life of godly cheerfulness, principally by the sufferers applying themselves to constant, diligent work in the business of families and callings. This has occupied the thoughts and left the devil no opportunity.

Thousands of poor people who have problems which - one would think - should fill them with melancholy, seldom do fall into this state because hard labour leaves them no leisure for melancholy musings. In London, however, and other large towns, numerous women who never sweat with bodily work, but live in idleness, are miserable objects, continually vexed, and near distraction with discontent and a restless mind. If you will not be persuaded to apply yourself to work of some kind, your friends, if they can, should force you to it.

And if Satan drives you inappropriately to longer private prayer than you can bear, remember that even bodily sickness excuses the sick from any sort of duty which they are unfit for, and so must your sickness of mood or mind excuse you from excessive secret prayer.

If you have privacy, I would give you this advice - instead of long meditation, or long private prayer, sing a psalm of praise to God, such as the 23rd, or the 133rd. This will stir your spirit to that sort of holy affection which is much more acceptable to God, and suitable to the hopes of a believer, than your complaining troubles are.

7 CURING DOUBTS ABOUT FORGIVENESS

A medicine of thirty-one truths

If your melancholy or overmuch sorrow arises from your sins and spiritual state, digest well these truths and counsels, and they will cure you.

1 God’s goodness is equal to His greatness, even to that power that rules Heaven and earth. His attributes are as great as each other. He loved us when we were enemies, and He is love itself.

2 Christ has freely taken human nature, and made satisfaction for the sins of the world, so that none shall perish for want of sufficiency in His sacrifice and merits.

3 Upon these merits, Christ forgives all sin, and freely gives everlasting life to all who will believingly accept it.

4 The condition of pardon and life is not that we sin no more, or that we, by our own works, benefit Him, or buy His grace, but only that we believe Him and willingly accept the mercy which He freely gives us, according to the nature of the gift; that is, that we accept Christ to justify, sanctify, rule, and save us.

5 God has commissioned His ministers to proclaim and offer this covenant and grace to all, and to earnestly entreat them in His name to accept it, and to be reconciled to Him; and in this offer He excludes no one.

6 No man who has this offer is damned, but only those who obstinately refuse it to the last breath.

7 The day of grace is never passed for any sinner if he still wants Christ.

8 The will is the man in God’s account, and what a man truly would have, he shall have. To wholly consent to the terms of the Gospel is true grace and conversion, and all who have wholeheartedly consented have a right to Christ, and life.

9 The number and greatness of former sins is no barrier to the pardon of any penitent. God pardons great and small sinners alike. Where sin abounds, grace superabounds.

10 Repentance is true, even though tears and passionate sorrow may be defective, when a man would rather leave his sin than keep it, and sincerely, though imperfectly, endeavours to overcome it. No sin shall damn a man which he hates more than he loves.

11 The best man has much evil, and the worst has some good; but it is that which is preferred and predominant in the will, which distinguishes the godly from the wicked. He that in estimation, choice, and life prefers God and Heaven and holiness above the world and the pleasure of sin, is truly a godly man, and shall be saved.

12 The best have daily need of pardon, even for the defectiveness of their holiest duties, and must daily live on Christ for pardon.

13 Even sins against knowledge and conscience are often committed by regenerate men; for they know more than others do, and their consciences are more active. They would be happy indeed if they could be as good as they know they should be, and love God as much as they know they should love Him.

14 God will not regard Satan’s temptations as our sins, but will only charge us with not resisting them. Christ Himself was tempted to the most heinous sin, even to fall down to the devil and worship him. God will charge Satan’s blasphemous temptations to Satan alone.

15 The thoughts, fears, and troubles caused by a naturally sorrowful temperament, are more of a bodily disease than a sinful condition, and are therefore no more sinful than high temperature and thirst in a fever.

16 Certainty of our faith is not essential to salvation. He shall be saved who gives up himself to Christ, even though he may be tempted to suspect his sincerity.

17 Probability of salvation may enable a man, justly, to live and die in peace and comfort, without absolute certainty. No man may be certain that he shall not fall as heinously as David and Peter did; and yet, while they have no cause to think it likely, they need not live in terror because of the uncertainty. No wife or child is absolutely certain that their husband or father will not murder them, and yet they may live comfortably, and not fear it.

18 Though faith is so weak as to be assaulted with doubts, if we see enough evidence of credibility in the Gospel to cause us to fix our hopes and choice upon it, and to resolve to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and to let go of all the world rather than sell those hopes - this faith will save us.

19 God’s love and promise through Christ is by itself so sure a ground for faith and comfort, that it is the great duty of all men, confidently and quietly, to trust Him, and then to live in the joy of trust and hope.

20 If any man doubts his salvation because of the greatness of his sins, the way to quietness is to be willing to forsake them. Either he that complains is willing to forsake his sins, or not. If you are not willing to leave them, but love them and would keep them, why do you complain of them, and mourn for that which you so much love? If your child should cry and roar because his apple is sour, and yet will not be persuaded to stop eating it, you would not pity him. But if you are truly willing to leave your sin, you are already saved from its damning guilt.

21 If you are in doubt of the sincerity of your faith, and all your reflection leaves you uncertain, the ultimate way to end your doubt is to give yourself anew to Christ. Do you not know whether you have been hitherto a true believer? You may become certain by taking Him now, and then you may be sure that He is yours.

22 Bare reflection on your spiritual state is not always the way to get assurance, but labour to excite and exercise your soul by a study of the promises and the goodness of God, until active faith assures you that you believe, and that you love God.

23 It is not by some extraordinary act, good or bad, that we may be sure what state the soul is in, but by the predominant bent, and drift, and tenor of heart and life.

24 Though we cry out that we cannot believe and love God, and we cannot pray aright, Christ can help us. If any lack wisdom let him ask it of God, Who gives to all liberally, and upbraids not.

25 The sin called the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost is the sin of no one who believes Jesus to be the Christ, nor is it the sin of any who fear it. Indeed, it is not even the sin of every unbeliever, but only of a few obstinate enemies, who see miracles of Christ and His Spirit so great as to convince them that He is of God, but call Him a conjurer, Who works them by the devil.

26 Though sinful fear is very troublesome, and not to be cherished, God often permits and uses it to good, to keep us from being bold in sin, and to keep us from love of the world, and to take down pride, and keep us in a sensible, watchful state.

27 He that goes fearing and trembling to Heaven will, once there, quickly be past all fear, doubts, and heaviness for ever.

28 When Christ was in agony for our sins, and when He cried out - ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ - He was still beloved of His Father. He was tempted so that He might succour them that are tempted, and suffered such derision so that He might be a compassionate High Priest to sufferers.

29 The more the troubles, blasphemous temptations, doubts, and fears of a man are grievous and hateful to him, the more he may be assured that they shall not condemn him, because they are not beloved sins.

30 All our troubles are overruled by God, and it is far better for us to be at His disposal than our own; and He has promised that all things shall work together for our good (Romans 8.28).

31 A delight in God and goodness, and a joyful, praising frame of soul is far more to be desired than grief and tears. Love, joy, and thankfulness mark the true evangelical, Christian frame, and are closer to the heavenly state.

8 CARING FOR A DISTRESSED WIFE

Yet I have not done with the duty of those who take care of distressed, melancholy persons, especially husbands to their wives, when the affliction disables them from helping themselves. Most of their help, under God, must be from others.

1 A great part of their cure lies in pleasing them, and avoiding all displeasing things, as far as can lawfully be done. Discontent is much of the disease, and a husband that has such a wife is obliged to do his best to cure her, both in love, and by his relational bond, and also for his own peace.

It is a great weakness in some men that if they have wives who, by natural passionate weakness, or by melancholy or unsoundness of mind, are wilful and will not yield to reason, they show their anger at them and make them even worse. You took her in marriage for better and for worse, in sickness and in health. If you have chosen one who, like a child, must have everything that she cries for, and must be spoken to nicely, and treated like one rocked in a cradle, you must condescend to do it, and so bear the burden which you have chosen. Your passion and sourness towards a person that cannot cure her own displeasing bearing, is a worse fault than hers, for she lacks the power of reason which you have.

If you know any proper thing that will please her in words, in company, in clothing, in rooms, in attendance, give it to her. If you know what upsets your sufferer, remove it. I speak not of those sufferers who have lost their reason, and who must be controlled, but of the sad and melancholy. If only you could devise how to put them in a happy condition you might cure them.

2 As much as you can, divert them from the thoughts which are their trouble. Keep them on some other conversation and business. Interrupt them and rouse them out of their musings, but with loving persuasion. Do not allow them to be long alone. Get fit company for them, or take them to it. Do not let them be idle, but drive or draw them to some pleasing work which may stir the body, and employ the thoughts. If they are addicted to reading, let them not read for too long, nor any books that are unfit for them; and let another read to them, rather than they read for themselves. Dr Sibbes’s books, and some useful, pleasing history or chronicles, or news of great matters abroad in the world may do much to divert them.

3 Often set before them the great truths of the Gospel which are best to comfort them; and read them informing, comforting books; and live in a loving, cheerful manner with them.

4Choose for them a skilful, prudent minister of Christ, both for their private counsel and public sermons; one that is skilled in such cases, and one that is peaceable, and not contentious, erroneous, or fond of odd opinions. Also, let him be a man who is sensible and careful in his preaching and praying, rather than unduly passionate (except when he urges the Gospel doctrines of consolation, and then the more fervently the better), and a man who they much respect, and will listen to well.

5 Labour to convince them frequently how great a wrong it is to the God of infinite love and mercy, and to a Saviour Who has so wonderfully expressed His love, to think worse of Him than they would of a friend, by being hard to convince of His great love for them. Had they a father, husband, or friend who had risked his life for them and given them all things, would it not be shameful for them to suspect such a one of being against them? What has God done to deserve this suspicion?

6 Take them often into different company, for usually they respect strangers, and new faces divert them, especially travelling into other parts (if they can bear the motion).

7 It is a useful way, if you can, to engage them in comforting others who are deeper in distresses than they are, for this will tell them that their case is not unusual, and they will minister to themselves while they speak to others. One of the chief means which cured my fears of my soul’s condition about forty- eight years ago was the frequent comforting of others who had the same doubts, but whose lives persuaded me of their sincerity. It would be a good diversion to send to them some person who is in some error which they are most against, to dispute it with them, that, while they exercise their minds to convince them, and confute them, their thoughts may be turned from their own distress.

If they imagine their case to be due to possession by the devil, and you cure the melancholy, his bed is taken away, and the advantage gone by which he works. Cure the anger or complaining disposition, and the operations of the devil cease. It is by means of such moods in us that he works.

The devil has an alternative cure for melancholy, different from any that I have here prescribed, which is to cast away all belief in the immortality of the soul and the life to come (or at least, never to think about it), and to view religion as a superstitious and unnecessary product of imagination. With this view, one may launch into entertainments, and drink and play melancholy away.

Certainly, honest recreations are good for melancholy (if we can get sufferers to employ them), but the satanic cure leads to shame and utter misery, for ‘there is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.’

This edited version of Baxter’s treatise first appeared in the Sword & Trowel in 1992, and has been in constant demand since then.