How the greatest paragraph ever written was used to deliver a hymn writer from suicidal depression

If you struggle with depression – – and, what an awful battle that can be – – consider reading The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd (The Swans Are Not Silent), but, first read this post and Romans 3:21-26.

John Piper told this story this as part of a sermon on Romans 3:21-26, what some theologians say is the greatest paragraph ever written.

Most nights as I tuck Talitha into bed she says, “Sing me a song.” The one we sing most often is one of my favorites by William Cowper,

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds you so much dread,
Are big with mercy and will break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs
And works his sovereign will.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

What Talitha doesn’t know, but may learn some day is that, in 1759 when Cowper was 28 years old, he had a total mental breakdown and tried three different ways to commit suicide. He became convinced that he was damned beyond hope. In December, 1763, he was committed to St. Alban’s Insane Asylum, where the 58-year-old Dr. Nathaniel Cotton tended the patients. By God’s wonderful design, Cotton was also an evangelical believer and lover of God and the gospel.

He loved Cowper and held out hope to him repeatedly in spite of Cowper’s insistence that he was damned and beyond hope. Six months into his stay, Cowper found a Bible lying (not by accident) on a bench in the garden. First he looked at John 11 and saw “so much benevolence, mercy, goodness, and sympathy with miserable men, in our Saviour’s conduct” that he felt a ray of hope. Then he turned to Romans 3:25, our text for today. This was a key turning point in his life.

Immediately I received the strength to believe it, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my pardon sealed in His blood, and all the fulness and completeness of His justification. In a moment I believed, and received the gospel.

In June, 1765, Cowper left St. Alban’s and lived and ministered 35 more years – not without great battles with depression, but also not without great fruit for the kingdom, like the hymns, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” “O for a Closer Walk with God!” and “The Spirit Breathes upon the Word.”