Verse 9 (Psalm 16) – “My heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth…” His inward joy was not able to contain itself. We testify our pleasure on lower occasions, even at the gratification of our senses; when our ear is filled with harmonious melody, when out eye is fixed upon admirable and beauteous objects, when our smell is recreated with agreeable odours, and our taste also by the delicacy and rareness of provisions; and much more will our soul show its delight, when its faculties, that are of a more exquisite constitution, meet with things that are in all respects agreeable and pleasant to them; and in God they meet with all those: with his light our understanding is refreshed, and is our will with his goodness and his love.
From C.H.S.’s Exposition of the Psalms (The Treasury of David)
6 Lessons from a Depressed Puritan Pastor: Timothy Rogers
(A must read for anyone who has depression or knows of someone who has it.)
This is an example from “6 Lessons.” It is the Fourth lesson:
Lesson #4: Focus on Encouragement Over Exhortation
As a wise and caring soul physician, Rogers equips others to care like Christ. “Do not urge your melancholy friends to do what is out of their power. They are like persons whose bones are broken, and who are incapacitated for action.”
Astute enough to imagine the negative response his statement might receive, Rogers adds, “But you will ask, ought we not to urge them to hear the Word of God?”
Rogers responds to his own question by noting that the soul physician must know well the particular person they are counseling. He says to “kindly and gently” encourage them, if they are able, to “attend the preaching of the Word; but beware of using a peremptory and violent method.”
Rogers then illustrates his suggested approach using a situation well-known in his day.
“The method pursued by John Dod with Mrs. Drake should be imitated. ‘The burden which overloaded her soul was so great, that we never durst add any thereunto, but fed her with all encouragements, she being too apt to overcharge herself, and to despair upon any addition of fuel to that fire which was inwardly consuming her.’”
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My comment: I think that Timothy Rogers would have encouraged people with life changing depression to seek a doctor who would attempt to find the proper modern medications for this, as he called it, disease.
CR
Wings of the Wind 
Thanks for the good post, Chris, and the linked article. I have encountered a number of pastors who dismissed mental health issues as a matter of not having enough faith.
You’re welcome, Tom, and thank you for sharing a sadly accurate observation.
Now I know what it must be like to be Shotei Ohtani and to be served up a nice juicy fastball right down the middle. Please accept my reply to you, Tom, as somewhat of a rant and if just one person sees and thinks about this reply I will be happy. You obviously already know how I feel about this.
Not are there only pastors who dismiss mental illness as a matter of not having enough faith, complete “Christian” counseling groups have a similar view. It is tragic how the opinions of these people have harmed so many.
Why was I surprised to find such wisdom from a puritan pastor who lived 350 years ago? I can’t say I have a good answer for that but many of the things I read from the puritans seem to inspire me more than so many “ministries” of our days.
I have another question. Do these religious people who dismiss mental illness as a matter of not having enough faith live in the same world I do?
The obvious answer is that they do. So how is it that they cannot understand that neighbors whom they live around (and probably someone they know) suffer from debilitating mental illness? I’m not referring to sadness; I’m referring to depression that won’t allow them to get out of bed for months at a time. This causes jobs to be lost and families to be affected in very difficult ways. To be told that their symptoms result from a lack of faith is a hubris that I don’t understand particularly when we have so many recent and not so recent medications that have helped people tremendously. I understand that there are doctors who to readily write prescriptions. What does that have to do with real people who are really suffering? Anyone who uses the “suffering” and “persecution” verses in the Bible to excuse their opinion that people should be able to handle such depression have never experienced it. I’ve seen statements from Christian “counselors” who state that God must want them to go through the suffering. It is ignorant and cruel.
Timothy Rogers states: “Never use harsh language to your friends when under the disease of melancholy. This will only serve to fret and perplex them the more, but will never benefit them. I know that the counsel of some is to rebuke and chide them on all occasions; but I dare confidently say that such advisors never felt the disease themselves” (emphasis added).
I will share one experience that I have witnessed myself to try to help those who think all mental illness is satanic bondage or something easily remedied. This experience is from a person (me) who does believe in demon possession. I believe I have seen it on more than one occasion.
I know someone who has schizophrenia. He is not demon possessed. Many people would say that it is more serious than depression, but they are both mental illnesses. Every case is different. Severities differ from person to person no matter what the mental illness.
This person I know developed schizophrenia in his mid 20s’, something that is pretty typical of schizophrenics. His parents took him in after he had already done well in the real world before his schizophrenia developed. After his diagnosis, his parents were told that the biggest challenge for the remainder of his life would be to keep him on his medication. They were told that schizophrenics often decide to ditch their meds when they start feeling better because of the meds. At the time he was diagnosed, medications for schizophrenics weren’t as developed as they are now. His wife divorced him, and he never got to know the daughter that he had.
His father became his legal guardian, and his parents rarely paid themselves back for his expenses intending to save his money for whatever the future held.
After a few years he disappeared. He left no note about where he had gone but he had taken the car that he owned and was able to operate safely when on his medications. The parents were, of course, very concerned and alerted the appropriate authorities about the situation. A week or so later they got a call. Their son’s car was found in the middle of a road out of gas and about two thousand miles away.
When the details of what happened were known, it was discovered that the mentally ill young man had gone off of his medications when he had heard something on the radio from a popular and nationally known preacher about not having to take medications. He had gotten in his car and taken off to the city where the preacher’s church was located.
In the case of this mentally ill young man, it didn’t take long for him to be off his medications to begin to act very strangely. He had done it before. While the parents worked on getting the young man home, he attended the church where the pastor whom he heard on the radio ministered. He wrote a substantial check to the church, one that depleted much of what his father had been saving for him. Maybe the pastor never discovered the situation as the parents decided not to press the church for answers. In any case, a large check that most pastors would notice, was written to the church by the mentally ill young man. Knowing some of this situation, I understand that this young man must have been showing signs of strange behavior, and it is surprising to me that there seems not to have ever been any observer in the church who noticed it. By the time the father was able to travel to help his son come back to the home where he was greatly loved, the young man with the mental illness was almost out of his mind. This was the third or fourth time he had gone off his medications and this time he didn’t rebound as well. He was never able to drive again. His life, and the life of his parents continued to be difficult, as they all lived with a person with mental illness. Anyone who knows or has lived with a person with mental illness knows that I have only shared the bare bones of this story.
Both of his parents passed away and he now lives in a retirement home for veterans. Thankfully, new meds combined with a bit of his original medication seem to keep him pretty stable. With the help of a new court appointed legal guardian and with what his father was able to save after the large check was written, his finances are now more stable than most people who have a mental illness. This is only one of several experiences like this that I have observed where someone had a mental illness that disabled them enough to cause a great amount of trial. I thank God for the medications that these people now have available to them to help them through their strange and difficult lives.
Thanks for sharing that story about the young man with schizophrenia, Chris. That’s a shame. Our former daughter-in-law is bipolar and stopped taking her medications. Our son separated from her after only a few years of marriage because the environment was physically dangerous.
I’m grateful for the ministry of John MacArthur, but I believe he was dangerously wrong about mental illness. I definitely do think the medical establishment goes too far by pushing treatment of gender dysphoria in children, but that has to be such a tiny percentage of minors.
You’re welcome, Tom, and thank you for sharing as well. The young wife of the young man with schizophrenia divorced him after just a few years and I’ve never judged her because the young man seemed very dangerous at times. She had a little daughter to keep safe.
I took a young man who was a member of a church I was attending under my wing and tried to help him with his bipolar condition. During the time I knew him he refused to take his medication and somehow he was still able to get government assistance. It didn’t matter. He trashed a number of places that I helped him get into and I finally had to draw the line when he stole from me. Basically, he borrowed his entire monthly rent and his check was supposed to be coming the next day. I never saw a penny of it but he told me he spent some of it ono his brand new expensive shoes. That was when I finally learned that I needed to discuss things like that with my wife before surging ahead. You probably already know how you have to learn that lesson more than once. The bipolar guy was halfway functioning and pretty good with computers. Still, he would have done so much better on his medication. I had seen pictures of him when he was on his meds and he looked so much better.
I was grateful for the ministry of John MacArthur as well, but you are spot on to believe he was dangerously wrong about mental illness. I haven’t had enough experience with gender dysphoria except that I know many people who allowed doctors to talk them into doing things to their bodies in their youth have enormous regrets. My understanding is that taking the breasts off of young women is quite profitable. I really don’t understand it when things go that far.
That was noble of you to try to help the person with bi-polar. I worked with a person at Kodak who had serious mental health problems. Paranoia. He believed everyone in the department had joined together and were plotting against him. I was a team leader and went to our manager a couple of times, but he said his hands were tied unless Ed threatened someone. The women in the department were seriously frightened. If Ed had been working in the offices rather than the factory, management would have intervened promptly.
It’s unfortunate, but these exploitative treatments for gender dysphoria give psychological counseling and treatment a bad name in the minds of many people.
Thanks for the kind words, Tom. It was probably over a 2 to 3 year period that I took him places and to church and tried to help him find work. In the end, he really didn’t want to or couldn’t focus long enough to work.
I’m sorry to hear about Ed. I’m glad the women in your department never had a serious incident but mentally ill people can be very frightening at times. Ed may have been scary because he was scared.
I’m with you that any doctor who takes advantage of someone going through any kind of difficult time, gender dysphoria included, gives the profession a bad name.
I enjoyed the post and the comments with you and Tom here
Thank you for letting me know, Pastor Jim!
😃