Augustine: Despair is the ultimate evil, and most men give themselves to it prematurely. Therefore, I want you to know above all that there is nothing to despair about.
Francesco: Yes, I knew that, but terror made me forget.

Secretum Meum
Francesco Petrarch[1]

This semester, I’m in a class focusing on madness and melancholy in 18th century England. Currently, I’m preparing a seminar presentation on the subject of Christian melancholy, and as such, I thought I’d write a bit of my musings here for public perusal.

First off, let me explain what I mean by “melancholy.” In contemporary English, the word typically means something like sadness. But the 18th century use of the word is more for something like depression than just mere sadness. It is to be in a constant state of low-spirits, of great despair and hopelessness.

At first glance, therefore, it may seem perhaps odd that there should be something we call “Christian” melancholy. After all, isn’t the basic tenant of Christianity the complete opposite of hopelessness? Don’t we believe in personal salvation offered to every individual through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ? And yet, it is undeniable that many great Christians have suffered from bouts of terror when contemplating their sin in relation to the judgment of God. Martin Luther (German reformer), John Donne (Church of England priest and poet), John Bunyan (Puritan author of Pilgrim’s Progress), and William Cowper (Evangelical poet and hymn writer) all struggled with this very issue. How could God forgive their sin, they thought to themselves, when they were so clearly unworthy of such grace?

Compounding the problem for some of these was a fear that perhaps, unwittingly and unknowingly, they might have somehow committed the unforgivable sin Jesus speaks of in Mark 3 and Matthew 12: that of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. If they had done this, even unwittingly, what chance at forgiveness could they have? Bunyan would later reflect that much of the time he was often so afraid that he “was struck into a very great trembling, insomuch that at sometime I could, for whole days together, feel my very body, as well as my minde, to shake and totter under the sense of the dreadful judgment of God, that should fall on those that have sinned that most fearful and unpardonable sin.”[2]

Bunyan, as the others did also, would eventually come through this great trial of spirit trusting more fully in the grace of God than ever before. They realized, as we should realize, that even fearing we have committed this sin is evidence that we have not committed it. For the context of the Scripture verse in question makes it clear that the unforgivable sin (the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit) is in effect a deliberate and final rejection of the authority of Christ’s power and authority. Any person who is afraid they may have committed the “unforgiveable sin” demonstrates that they have not, as they still care about the authority of Christ in their lives. They cannot, therefore, have made a final rejection of Christ. (After all, who fears something that they have completely rejected?).

It is right that we should feel remorse for our sins, but we must not give in to utter despair over them. As Luther has written, “The devil gives heaven to people before they sin, but after they sin, brings their consciences into despair.”[3] In other words, the devil seeks to condemn us after we have already experienced the goodness of God. For once we have felt the grace of God, how much easier it is to make us not only remorseful for our sin (which is proper) but to make us despair that God is willing to forgive us again when we so often sin against Him? How many times, we must wonder, can God forgive us for the same sins,over and over again? And yet Christ has given us the answer to such fears. He has stated that we must forgive (and, by extension, God forgives us) “Seventy-seven times” – that is to say, the complete number times the complete number: in other words, endlessly (Mt 18:22).

Cowper, in one fit of melancholy, tried to end it all. He attempted to bring himself to both drink poison and throw himself from a bridge. But Christ intervened. Whenever he reached for the vial of poison, he found his hands shook beyond control and he felt a voice inside forbid the action. Finally, someone walked in, and the act was interrupted. Cowper felt so ashamed, so certain that this sin could never be forgiven. He had attempted to take his own life.

And yet Cowper would come to recover his faith and find peace again, for a time in the mercy of Christ. As time progressed, however, he lapsed into despair again, certain that he was too terrible to be forgiven by God. And yet Cowper knew the answer to his struggle was to be found in the mercy of Christ. During the intermittent period of assured faith between his melancholic depressions,he would later write the following beautiful hymn, a hymn still sung in churches across the world today. Here are the first and last verses selected for our meditation:[4]

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be,
For me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me!
‘Tis strung and tuned for endless years, and formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears no other name but Thine.

Amen. May these words be our own prayer: “Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared, unworthy though I be, for me a blood bought free reward, a golden harp for me.” For only in the mercy and love of God, do we find an answer to despair. Amen.

[1] Petrarch, Francesco. “Petrarch’s Secret Inner Struggle” from Petrarch’s Secretum, Book 2 (1358). Ed. Davy A. Carozza and H. James Shey, American University Studies, Series XVII: Classical Language and Literature, Vol. 7, P. Lang Publications, 1989.

[2] Bunyan, John. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners… (London, 1666) as quoted in Baird Tipson’s “A Dark-Side of Seventeenth-Century English Protestantism: The Sin Against the Holy Spirit.” The Harvard Theological Review. Vol. 77. No. ¾. 1984. p. 303.

[3] Luther, Martin The Table Talk of Martin Luther (1556). Section DCXXI. Translated by William Hazlitt. 1650.

[4] Cowper, William. “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” Conyer’s Collection of Psalms and Hymns. Ed. R. Conyers. 1772.