Counsel for the Melancholy

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God. PSALM 42:11

Among the most remarkable things Baxter wrote are his treatises on what his century called melancholy — what we would call depression, anxiety and related disorders of the mind. They are remarkable because they are three hundred years ahead of most of what was written on the subject afterwards, and because a great deal of Christian counsel since has been worse.

A disease, not a sin

Baxter’s central insight is that melancholy is frequently a bodily illness that produces spiritual symptoms, and that treating the symptoms as though they were the disease makes everything worse. The sufferer presents with religious distress. He cannot pray, cannot feel God’s love, is convinced he is beyond mercy, and can produce a detailed case against himself. The natural response of a minister is to address this theologically — to reason with the doubts, urge self-examination, and press the promises. Baxter observed that this frequently fails, and that it fails because the problem is not in the theology. The same person, restored to bodily health, generally finds his doubts have evaporated without a single argument having been answered. The doubts were a product of the condition, not its cause. He therefore insisted that such sufferers need physic as well as spiritual counsel — medical treatment, taken seriously, alongside prayer. In the seventeenth century that was an unusual thing for a divine to say.

What not to do

His directions to counsellors are the most valuable part, and they cut directly against most instincts. Do not press self-examination. This is the great error. A melancholy person turned inward will find fresh evidence against himself indefinitely, because the faculty doing the searching is the one that is disordered. Baxter’s counsel was to turn such people outward — to the promises, to Christ, to other people — and to forbid the introspection that a healthy Christian should be encouraged in.

Do not leave them alone. Solitude and prolonged meditation, which he recommended warmly elsewhere in his writings, he judged actively harmful here. Company, conversation and cheerful occupation do more good. Do not argue with every doubt. The doubts multiply faster than they can be answered, and answering them concedes the premise that the trouble is intellectual. Do not add guilt. Telling a person that their despair is itself a sin, or evidence of weak faith, is both untrue and cruel. Baxter said that God does not break all men’s hearts alike, and he meant that temperament and constitution differ, and that God knows the difference even when we do not.

What to do

His positive counsel is gentle and mostly practical. Attend to the body first: food, sleep, exercise, fresh air, and medical help. He was insistent that the physical be addressed rather than spiritualised. The pattern is older than Baxter. When Elijah collapsed under a juniper tree and asked God to take his life, God’s first response was not a rebuke or a sermon. An angel gave him food and let him sleep, twice, before anything was said.

And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat …because the journey is too great for thee. 1 KINGS 19:5, 7

Keep them in company and in useful employment. Give them small, achievable duties rather than large spiritual programmes. Hold the objective promises before them, and do not require them to feel anything. Baxter’s point was that a believer’s safety rests on what Christ has done, not on his capacity to perceive it — and that a person who cannot feel God’s love is not thereby outside it.

The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. PSALM 34:18

A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench. ISAIAH 42:3

A word for the present day

Baxter’s counsel needs no correction so much as it needs restating, but two things should be said plainly for a modern reader. If you are suffering in this way, please seek qualified medical help. Depression and anxiety disorders are real illnesses with effective treatments, and consulting a doctor is not a failure of faith any more than it would be for a broken bone. Baxter said as much with the medicine available to him; he would say it far more strongly now. And if you have been told that your condition reveals a deficiency in your Christian life, that was wrong, and you may set it down. Some of the most faithful believers who have ever lived have suffered exactly this. The psalmist who wrote the verse at the head of this chapter was one of them, and he wrote it twice more in the same book because the trouble kept coming back.

If you are helping someone in this condition, the single most useful thing in Baxter is his instruction to turn them outward. Do not ask them to examine themselves. Ask them to look at Christ, and sit with them while they cannot.

When a believer cannot pray

One particular symptom deserves separate treatment, because it distresses sufferers more than almost anything else: the inability to pray. The person finds that prayer has become impossible. The mind will not settle, no words come, and what does come feels hollow. Since they have always been taught that prayer is the lifeline, the loss of it seems to confirm that they have been cut off. Baxter’s counsel here is gentle and entirely practical. Use other people’s words. The Psalms exist for exactly this. A person who cannot construct a prayer can read one, and the Psalter contains a considerable number written by people in this precise condition.

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. PSALM 130:1–2

Keep it very short. A sentence is a prayer. The length of an exercise is no measure of its acceptance, and demanding an hour of a person who cannot manage a minute guarantees failure and shame. Let others pray for you. The paralysed man in Mark 2 was carried by friends, and the text says the Lord saw their faith. There is no suggestion that being carried was a deficiency. Rest on the intercession that continues without you.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. ROMANS 8:26

And Christ Himself is interceding, continuously, whether or not you can join in. That is the ground to stand on when nothing else holds: the prayer that secures you is not yours.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. If you are suffering in this way, see a doctor. It is not a failure of faith, and Baxter would have told you the same. 2. Stop examining yourself while you are in this condition. Turn outward to the promises instead; the inspection is making it worse. 3. If you are helping someone, attend to the body first — food, sleep, company — before addressing anything spiritual. 4. Do not argue with every doubt, and never suggest that despair is proof of weak faith. 5. Rest your safety on what Christ has done rather than on your ability to feel it. Both are true; only one of them is steady.

A PRAYER

Lord, You know that not all hearts are broken alike, and that some of Your servants carry a weight in the mind that others cannot see.

For those who cannot pray, pray in them. For those who cannot feel Your love, hold them in it anyway.

Keep me from being a cruel comforter. Let me never add guilt to a burden You are carrying with them, or press examination on a soul that needs rest and food and company.

You will not break the bruised reed. Be near, as You have promised, to those of a broken heart. Amen.