William Cowper: Depression and the Art of Hymn Writing

Sometimes God's grace is not a pretty sight. We love to romanticize the gospel, but at times, when God lays hold of people who are caught in the grip of the saddest vignettes of human experience, the end product is something we would hardly want to sing about, let alone live through ourselves. So it is with the puzzling life of William Cowper, renowned poet and hymn writer of the seventeenth century. The beginning of his story fits well with our fancies of gospel transformation. Sad, depressed, suicidal person meets wonderful Christian psychiatrist who loves the gospel. Sad person accepts Christ and his life is dramatically transformed. He goes on to write humorous, witty poetry and becomes nationally famous. Then, after another traumatic event in his life, he becomes sad again and meets a kind and gracious pastor. Godly people take him in and love him sacrificially, and the depressed person blossoms under spiritual truth and nurturing love, writing many wonderful hymns and clever poems.

This was William Cowper's story. Before Cowper was born in 1731 into a pastor's household, his parents had lost two children; they lost two more before his mother died when he was six years old. William was sent to boarding school and suffered a great deal of bullying. These sad events shaped the landscape of fear, anxiety, and depression against which William would live out his days. Rev. Cowper chose the law as a career for his emotionally fragile son, who crumbled at the prospect of his examination for a clerkship at the House of Lords in 1763. Following three suicide attempts, he was admitted to Nathaniel Cotton's asylum at St. Alban's for treatment. Through the gospel ministry of this godly doctor, Cowper came to faith in Christ and began to flourish emotionally and spiritually for a period of years.

Although God granted him intermittent periods of spiritual and emotional stability, the end of Cowper's story isn't very sweet or romantic. A series of emotional traumas sent Cowper into a deep spiral of anguish and despair that lasted for years. A failed courtship and persistent inability to handle the stresses of the working world contributed to his depression. The final blow came with the death of his dear friend, Mary Unwin, who had nursed him faithfully for more than thirty years. Cowper never recovered from this loss. This extraordinarily gifted man, who had written such profound hymns, ended his days (in 1800) as a functional atheist, with no assurance of faith, unable to pray or attend church.

What are we to make of William Cowper? We love to hear stories of whispered faith firmly exhaled with a dying breath, but we scarcely know what to do with weak and troubled faith that languishes for long periods and seems to flicker out at last. But God sees things differently.

Though God reigns enthroned in power and might, the Bible tells us of his care for the weak and helpless. The promised Servant of the Lord in Isaiah will not break the bruised reed or put out the smoldering wick (Isa. 42:3)’attributes that Jesus demonstrated in his healing ministry as he cared for people with broken bodies and troubled minds (Matt. 12:15-22). God's might is not only demonstrated in strengthening us with his power; it is equally on display in sustaining us in our great weakness.

We tend to view God's work from the microscope of our tiny lives, and we search for evidence of his victories to assure ourselves we are safe. Yet God's great work in us is designed to demonstrate his power and unique wisdom to all the hosts of heaven’to the angels and archangels, and even to Satan himself (Eph. 3:8-10). Sometimes this power is displayed in a work of grand transformation, in which he makes the weak strong and lifts up the downcast. At other times, God glorifies himself by showing that his power is sufficient to preserve the most fragile person connected to him by the smallest faith’the bruised reeds that seem like they must inevitably break, and the smoldering wicks that seem impossible to keep alight. God thereby displays to the whole spiritual realm that he alone can save and keep the frailest of human beings.

How does this principle help us to understand Cowper as a hymnist, and the people in our own lives who struggle endlessly with depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, mania, and paranoia? Cowper's hymns and poems give us a hint. For a time, Cowper was England's foremost poet. Much of his work sparkles with a wit and humor so delightful that it defies the haunting story of his life. His poem "The Task" began as a playful request from a friend for some blank verse about a sofa. It developed into a 5,000-line masterpiece that begins with a humble sofa but moves on to discuss a vast range of topics with wisdom and that eye for detail that only a gifted pen can draw out.

Cowper's hymns are an equally powerful blend of light and darkness. Whereas we often trade saccharine assurances that in Jesus we are happy all the day, Cowper wrote of a God "who moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform." (1) This God cannot be judged by feeble senses, still less by blind unbelief, and may at times show his people a frowning providence. But behind these incomprehensible realities of life, God is at work with never failing skill to accomplish his sovereign purposes. Indeed, the dark clouds of life that cause so much fear "are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head." Behind the frowning providence lies a smiling divine face.

Cowper's life was a lived-out attempt to hold on to the faith expressed in that hymn in the face of the desperate difficulties of life. I too have had glimpses of fear, pain, depression, and despair. Yet I can't imagine living with all of them as steady daily companions. Many of us can sing, "Where is the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord? Where is the soul-refreshing view of Jesus and his Word?" (2) But can you imagine the challenge of singing that when you have become convinced that you have indeed been cast off by God?

In the midst of his pain and confusion, Cowper expressed something about God in his hymns that is unusually rich and powerful. Cowper's life and work remind us that God's ways are often mysterious and perplexing. They can bring us to despair because God refuses to bow to our pathetic wisdom, and his stories don't fit neatly on a religious greeting card. God doesn't save people and make their lives delightful and fun-filled. Rather, he calls his people to take up a heavy, brutal cross of suffering and follow Christ. Nor do God's mysterious ways always have peaceful and sentimental endings, the "calm and serene frame" for which Cowper longed. The "unfathomable mines" of his purposes include godly men and women inflicted with Alzheimer's, and battles with cancer fought and painfully lost by gentle saints who lacked assurance and peace all the way to the end. They include Christians unable to rest in the comfort of the gospel and driven to end their own lives. Is the account of God's redemption big enough to include these stories? Is the gospel able to trump the most distressing earthly narrative and save even those who have given up hope for themselves?

In his better moments, William Cowper knew that "the dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day, and there have I though vile as he, washed all my sins away." (3) Cowper knew that there was nothing wonderful about his faith that he could offer to God. He was utterly broken, clinging to those who could be strong for him, comforted by the faith of those whom God gave an assurance that he himself lacked. Cowper cast himself on the mercy of God:

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood shall never lose its power;

Till all the ransomed church of God be saved, to sin no more.

Such a salvation is sufficient to take whatever Satan throws at it, sufficient to triumph over our fear and cowardice, even over decaying minds and malfunctioning brains. This salvation doesn't depend on our dying well or experiencing triumphant daily victories; it depends wholly on Christ's powerful blood.

John Newton likened suffering saints, such as Cowper, to the burning bush that Moses encountered: always burning but never consumed. (4) Sometimes God allows Satan to torment and buffet his people, over and over again, as if to say, "Do your worst, Satan, but you cannot have this one" (Luke 22:31). In this way, God glorifies himself by demonstrating Satan's inability to triumph over even the weakest of God's people.

Instead of feeling embarrassed by brothers and sisters who struggle with desperately weak assurance, with mental illness, or with traumas so severe that brains have been altered and minds shattered, perhaps we should recognize these as the true heroes of our faith. For most of us, our faith grants us a measure of comfort and peace, even in the dark places of this world. But God asks some of his people to walk by a faith of which they rarely feel the comfort. Their glimpses of hope are transient and barely remembered; their memories of God's kindness so impaired that they cannot bring them to bear on the next trial. For them, despair is nearly constant, while joy and hope are fleeting and immediately forgotten.

Yet the last shall be first when we reach our heavenly home. Scripture tells us to hold on gently to the weak and fragile people like William Cowper in our church families, and to be patient with them. They endure a dark life without many of the joys and comforts we experience. But can you hear the shouts of joy when God brings them safely home? Can you imagine the celebration in heaven when these "poor, lisping, stammering tongues," much to their own amazement, join in singing,

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Such are perhaps the greatest trophies of God's grace, the most dazzling testimonies of God's incredible power to save to the uttermost.