“Darkness is my only friend.”
Ps. 88:18 CSB
“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.”
Ps. 42:11
“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief…”
Isa. 53:3
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Subsections
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Order of Contents
Articles 5+
Books 14
For Pastors 5
Historical 8
Biblio 1
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Articles
1600’s
Dickson, David – chapters in Therapeutica Sacra
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1800’s
Alexander, Archibald – ‘Melancholy’ in Thoughts on Religious Experience
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2000’s
Murray, David
‘The Puritans & Mental Illness’ (2013) 12 paragraphs
These articles of Murray are mostly about depression.
‘The Puritans on Medication for Mental Illness’ (2013) 13 paragraphs
‘A Medical Test for Mental Illness’ (2013) 13 paragraphs
“The red area cg25 is the sadness center of the brain and it’s red hot. The “cold” or “underactive” blue areas are concerned with drive, motivation, decision making, etc… the PET scans at the moment are prohibitively expensive for most… However, such tests will accelerate the improvement of medications.”
‘How to Pray when you’re Feeling Depressed’ (2020) 12 paragraphs
Scrivener, Glen – ‘Hope in the Darkness of Mental Illness’ (2017) 22 paragraphs at The Gospel Coalition
Bredenhof, Wes – ‘What it Feels Like’ (2023) 10 paragraphs
Reformed Pastor Bredenhof describes his experience with clinical depression.
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Books
1500’s
Bright, Timothy – Treatise of Melancholie (1586)
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1600’s
Robert Burton – The Anatomy of Melancholy, with all the kinds, causes, symptoms, prognostics, and several cures of it… Philosophically, medicinally, historically, opened and cut up (Oxford: Lichfield, 1621) 789 pp.
Sibbes, Richard – The Soul’s Conflict & Victory over Itself by Faith
Goodwin, Thomas – A Child of Light Walking in Darkness (London: Houlston, 1855) 235 pp.
Love, Christopher, The Dejected Soul’s Cure
Bolton, Robert – Instruction for a Right Comforting of Afflicted Consciences
Baxter, Richard
pt. 1, ch. 6, title 5, ‘Directions to the Melancholy about their Thoughts’ in A Christian Directory… (London: White, 1673), pp. 312-19
Preservatives Against Melancholy & Overmuch Sorrow, or the Cure of both by Faith & Physic… (London: W.R., 1713) 96 pp. no ToC on 2 Cor. 2:7
Depression, Anxiety & the Christian Life: Practical Wisdom from Richard Baxter ed. Michael S. Lundy Pre (Crossway, 2018)
This includes the two works above and another piece, pt. 4, ch. 5, ‘The Duty of Physicians’ in Christian Directory.
Bridges, William – A Lifting up for the Downcast
Brooks, Thomas
in Precious Remedies
The Mute Christian Under the Smarting Rod
Rogers, Timothy – A Disource concerning Trouble of Mind and the Disease of Melancholy… to which are annexed some letters from several divines relating to the same subject modernized William H. Gross (London: Parkhurst, 1691) 555 pp.
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1900’s
Lloyd-Jones, D. Martyn – Spiritual Depression: Its Cause & Cures
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2000’s
Murray, David – Christians get Depressed Too: Hope & Help for Depressed People Ref (RHB, 2010) 112 pp.
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For Pastors
Articles
Keller, Tim – ‘Puritan Resources for Biblical Counseling’ at CCEF
This gives puritan resources for counseling in helping with fear, anxiety, depression, grief, burnout, disappointment, discouragement. despair, doubt, etc.
Koopman, John – ‘Pastoral Thoughts on Depression’ (2013) 8 paragraphs at Head Heart Hand
‘Interview: Pastor Tony Rose on how the Puritans spoke to his depression’ (2018) at The Weary Christian: Living with Faith & Depression
“Pastor Tony Rose is a former chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Mental Health Advisory Board (2014-2015), pastor of a church in Kentucky, and… a life-long depressive.”
Bredenhof, Wes – ‘What it Feels Like’ (2023) 10 paragraphs
Reformed Pastor Bredenhof describes his experience with clinical depression.
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Book
Bloem, Steve – The Pastoral Handbook of Mental Illness: a Guide for Training & Reference Pre (Kregel, 2018) 160 pp. ToC
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Historical
On Puritanism
Articles
Sena, John F. – ‘Melancholic Madness & the Puritans’ in Harvard Theological Review, vol. 66, no. 3 (July, 1973), pp. 293-309
Brann, Noel L. – ‘The Problem of Distinguishing Religious Guilt
from Religious Melancholy in the English Renaissance’ (after 1976), pp. 63-72 at BYU.edu
Brumm, Ursula – ‘Passions & Depressions in Early American Puritanism’ Revue de la Société d’études anglo-américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles Année 1978 Actes (1978), pp. 85-96
Johnson, Sheena K. – ‘The Nature of Religious Melancholy: Edward Taylor’s Poetic Treatments of a 17th Century Epidemic’ MA thesis (2014) 47 pp.
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Books
King, John Owen – The Iron of Melancholy: Structures of Spiritual Conversion in America from the Puritan Conscience to Victorian Neurosis Ref Buy (Wesleyan University Press, 1987) 472 pp.
Herding, David P. – Counseling the Depressed Person: the Puritan Alternative to Secular Psychology MA thesis (Reformed Theological Seminary, NC, 2010) 91 pp.
Hunter, Elizabeth Katherine – Melancholy & the Doctrine of Reprobation in English Puritan Culture, 1550-1640 PhD diss. (University of Oxford, 2012) 320 pp.
Abstract: “The thesis examines the relationship between reprobation fears and melancholic illness in puritan culture over a period of approximately ninety years… When a person came to believe that they were reprobate, this could give rise to symptoms of fear and despair similar to those associated with melancholy (an imbalance of black bile believed to affect the brain).
The thesis shows how puritans used explanations based on melancholy in order to explain how otherwise godly people came to doubt their election. The first chapter shows how the Calvinist physician, Timothy Bright, incorporated ideas from medieval scholastic and medical texts into his Treatise of melancholie (1586), in order to explain how physiological causes could be at the root of reprobation fears. The second and third chapters examine the religious context in which Bright was writing.
The second chapter shows puritan ambivalence about pronouncing a person to be reprobate through an examination of responses to the death of the apostate, Francesco Spiera. The third chapter shows how the Elizabethan puritan clergy developed a form of consolation for those suffering from despair of salvation based on the medieval idea that melancholy was the ‘devil’s bath’. The fourth and fifth chapters show the importance of physiological explanations for despair in defending the reputations of the dying. When a godly person despaired on their death-bed, or committed suicide, this was blamed on a combination of forces external to themselves – melancholy and the devil.
The final chapter shows how Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy adapted puritan ideas about despair, to be more acceptable in the context of growing resistance to the preaching of double predestination in the 1620s and 30s.”
Shirilan, Stephanie – Robert Burton & the Transformative Powers of Melancholy Abstract (Routledge, 2016) 230 pp.
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Bibliography
2000’s
Murray, David – ‘Depression [Resources]’ (2015)
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“…our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:”
2 Cor. 1:8-9
“For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
Ps. 30:5
“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Heb. 12:2
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