ITVFLUENCE 
 
 ?HT£1CAL CAUSES 
 
 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 
 
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 BV 4915 .J62 1846 
 Jones, Joseph H. 1797-1868 
 The influence of physical 
 causes on religious 
 
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THE 
 
 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 
 
 BY JOSEPH H>JONES, 
 
 PASTOR OF THE SIXTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 Non ignara mali miseris succurrerc disco. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 WILLIAM S. MARTIEN, No. 37 SOUTH SEVENTH STREET. 
 
 New York : — No. 23 Centre Street. 
 
 1846. 
 
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 
 1845, by Joseph H. Jones, in the office of the Clerk of 
 the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsyl- 
 
XC±L 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Page 
 Connexion between the Material and Spiritual parts, 
 
 as recognized in the Scripture, as demonstrated by 
 
 Science, and as illustrated in Christian Experience, 13 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Practical uses of an acquaintance with this subject 
 to Professors of Religion, and especially to its 
 Teachers, for Doctrine, Charity, Reproof, Correc- 
 tion of serious Errors, Consolation, 50 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Counsels to the Troubled and Desponding; — Ascer- 
 tain the cause of their disquietude ; — Obtain judi- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 cious Medical Advice, suitable Society, Temper- 
 ate habits, Occupation, Divine Aid, 77 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 1. A sample of cases of manifest disorder of the re- 
 ligious views, and great mental distress, which are 
 usually treated with much difficulty, 114 
 
 2. The efficacy of judicious medical treatment, as 
 shown in the case of a lady, 118 
 
 3. The effect of disease in misguiding the conscience, 120 
 
 4. A case exposing the error of hastily ascribing reli- 
 gious melancholy to the direct influence of religion, 122 
 
 5. Importance of watchfulness against a constitu- 
 tional tendency to melancholy, 124 
 
 6. The mistake of imputing to satanic agency, what 
 
 is dependent on bodily disease, 1 29 
 
 7. Temperaments, or idiosyncrasies, 126 
 
 8. Writers recommended, 131 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 The publishing of so small and imperfect 
 a book on a subject of so great importance, 
 needs to be explained to those who are not 
 aware of its history, nor of the writer's mo- 
 tive. It is the substance of three discourses, 
 somewhat enlarged and modified since they 
 were delivered, which were designed for the 
 benefit of a particular class of hearers, more 
 numerous than is generally supposed, and 
 whose case is too often overlooked. As the 
 preacher had anticipated, while the subject 
 Avas scarcely intelligible to some, and as un- 
 suited to their taste and condition as a dis- 
 quisition on colours to the blind, it was heard 
 with the liveliest interest by others, whose 
 wishes and welfare have been mainly con- 
 sulted in making it public. The writer 
 makes no pretensions to originality or deep 
 
10 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 thinking, nor to such an acquaintance with 
 psychology, or physical science, as a tho- 
 rough and enlightened discussion of the sub- 
 ject requires. He is sensible that it is still as 
 fully open to be handl'ed by a well furnished 
 and competent pen, as it was before the 
 present thoughts were pubhshed. But in 
 the absence of what is desirable, those who 
 are interested may derive whatever advan- 
 tage they can from the sources that are acces- 
 sible. 
 
 So far as the thoughts of others have been 
 approved, and were suited to the purpose of 
 the writer, they have been adopted, often in 
 their own language, and are here acknow- 
 ledged in general, to supersede tlie necessity 
 of multiplied marginal references and marks 
 of quotation. The authors of certain well 
 written papers on subjects kindred to this, in 
 the Literary and Theological Review, the 
 Biblical Repertory, and Christian Spectator, 
 will perceive our obligations to them. Doc- 
 tors George and John Cheyne, Combe, James, 
 Johnson, Burrowes, Rush, Brigham, and Es- 
 quirol; Rev. Br. Alexander, Richard Baxter, 
 and some others, have been consulted ; and 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 11 
 
 it is but candid to confess that to the glean- 
 ings from them, the book will be indebted for 
 no small proportion of the interest that it may- 
 chance to awaken. Not unfrequently, how- 
 ever, our own conceptions have been pre- 
 sented in the language of another, for the 
 sake of procuring more respect to the senti- 
 ments, by giving them higher authority. 
 Should the book be blessed to the relieving 
 of a single case of spiritual despondency, it 
 will so far subserve the purpose for which 
 the writer has yielded, with no little hesita- 
 tion, to the request that the work should be 
 given to the press. 
 
INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 ON 
 
 KELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CONNEXION BETWEEN THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL 
 PARTS IN MAN. 
 
 How poor, how rich, how abject, how august. 
 How complicate, how wonderful is man ! — Young. 
 
 " I WILL praise Thee," says David, " for I am 
 fearfully and wonderfully made." How far 
 the Psalmist understood the full import of his 
 words, or was acquainted with the wonder- 
 ful mechanism of man to which he alludes, 
 we do not presume to know. It is enough 
 to say, that the terms which he uses, are most 
 appropriate and descriptive, as has been abun- 
 dantly proved by the researches of physiolo- 
 gy. But curious and fearful as is the struc- 
 ture of the material part, there is displayed 
 2 
 
14 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 far more of the wisdom and greatness of God 
 in the creation and endowments of the soul; 
 and although we are accustomed to speak 
 familiarly of both, as if they were well under- 
 stood, yet there is scarcely a term which we 
 employ which is not rather a symbol of what 
 we do not know, than an exponent of v/hat 
 we do. The mystery of the Trinity is not 
 more inexplicable, than is the connexion 
 that subsists between the body and the soul 
 of man. The most that we know of either, is 
 derived from the results which flow from 
 such an union. As we infer the being and 
 cooperation of the three persons in the God- 
 head, from the nature and the benefits of re- 
 demption, by which this triune existence is 
 implied, so we become assured that we have 
 a spirit as well as a body, from their acts or 
 motions, which we feel. We know nothing 
 of the substance of which either is composed, 
 nor of the mode in which the two are linked 
 together. The attempts of science to reach 
 and explain these ultimate facts, have not 
 amounted to even an approximation. What- 
 ever has been written concerning the locality 
 of the soul, the time of its entrance into the 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 15 
 
 body, the mode by which it acts upon or gov- 
 erns it, and the avenue through which it es- 
 capes at death, is but little more than specula- 
 tion and conjecture. Says Dr. Abercrombie, 
 " we talk about matter, and we talk about 
 mind; we speculate concerning materiality 
 and immateriality, until we argue ourselves 
 into a kind of belief that we understand some- 
 thing of the subject. The truth is, that we 
 understand nothing.^' We really know but 
 little more than a few facts in relation to 
 both, which are discoverable by their respec- 
 tive qualities and attributes; such as that the 
 two are closely united; that what is called 
 the nervous system is the medium of com- 
 munication between them; so that they exert 
 a strong reciprocal influence upon each other; 
 that when the one is afliicted, it always has 
 the sympathy of the other. They, there- 
 fore, have been employed more wisely, who, 
 leaving the former as among the inscrutable 
 things of God, have endeavoured to make a 
 practical improvement of the latter. It is a 
 subject that so intimately blends with all 
 that conduces to the enjoyment and useful- 
 ness of life, as well as its continuance, that it 
 
16 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 is of the highest importance for all to under- 
 stand it, and to none is such knowledge 
 more needful than to the official teachers of 
 religion. 
 
 It is proposed at this time, to offer a few 
 thoughts on this interesting topic, more with 
 a view to awaken the attention, and invite 
 the pen of others, than to furnish all that is 
 needed. Indeed, such a work as the exi- 
 gency of the church has long demanded, is 
 not likely to be accomplished by "any one 
 who is not furnished with a suitable educa- 
 tion, theological and medical, profoundly and 
 experimentally acquainted with the Scrip- 
 tures, fond of research, and gifted with good 
 powers of generalization and induction." 
 
 For those who wish to pursue the subject 
 in its pathological bearings, or as one of the 
 departments of physiology, there are nu- 
 merous medical treatises, both domestic and 
 foreign, which are easily accessible. What 
 we have to offer in the following chapters, is 
 little more than the result of some observa- 
 tion, and the few years' experience of a 
 pastor. It is intended to furnish, in a porta- 
 ble form and size, a tract for the benefit of 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 17 
 
 Christians of an unequal and fluctuating ex- 
 perience, produced by physical causes, though 
 not suspected perhaps by themselves, nor 
 their spiritual advisers. 
 
 I. It has already been said, that much that 
 pertains to the nature of the connexion be- 
 tween the flesh and the spirit is a mystery 
 which science has tried in vain to explore. 
 It has proceeded so far as to discover in the 
 human fabric, certain delicate white threads, 
 leading from the brain and spinal marrow to 
 every part of the body. It has also been ascer- 
 tained, that by means of these nerves, (as they 
 are called from the Latin term nervus, a. string) 
 sensations are conveyed from each of the or- 
 gans of sense to the brain; moreover, that 
 these are the channels of communication be- 
 tween the mind and the body, as is proved by 
 the well known fact, that if one of the nerves 
 of the arm or leg be sundered, all power of 
 that limb is lost; if another be cut, sensation 
 is no longer transmitted through the arm to 
 the mind. But how the volitions or concep- 
 tions of the mind are conveyed on these deli- 
 cate material conductors, whether by vibra- 
 
IS INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 tion, by a nervous fluid, or by neither, or 
 what is their specific substance or construc- 
 tion, by which they are made not only ve- 
 hicles of thought, but instruments of exquisite 
 pleasure or pain, are among the questions 
 that have been a constant source of hypothesis 
 in past ages, but which neither reason nor rev- 
 elation has answered. It is quite probable that 
 neither our happiness nor our usefulness 
 would be increased by a knowledge of the 
 essence of mind and matter, and that enough 
 is known from their various phenomena to 
 answer every practical purpose. With that 
 class of them which we are about to con- 
 sider, the world of course have been more or 
 less familiar ever since the fall subjected man 
 to disease, and made the earthly part a clog, 
 while it gave it such ascendency over the 
 heavenly. But in regard to those morbid 
 results of this connexion, which are techni- 
 cally called "nervous,'^ it has been frequently 
 said, that, to a great extent, they are a penalty 
 for an abuse of the multiplied blessings of 
 civilized life. Among savage tribes, such 
 affections are scarcely known, and they are 
 very rare among those whose pursuits are ac- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 19 
 
 tive, and connected with habitual exposure. 
 Hence it is easily understood why medi- 
 cine was no more diligently cultivated among 
 the ancients, and how it happened that the 
 first physician of eminence, who has been 
 called the "father of medicine," should 
 have lived within less than five hundred 
 years before Christ. In the early ages of the 
 world, there was comparatively little occa- 
 sion for a profession that is now so highly 
 honoured, and which is so indispensable to 
 the health and happiness of society. The 
 simplicity of manners which prevailed, plain- 
 ness of diet, temperance and activity in rural 
 occupations, were productive of a degree 
 of health and vigour which are hardly known 
 at present. How far the great age of man, 
 until shortened by a divine decree, was 
 the result of natural causes, we do not pre- 
 sume to say; but the progress of the healing 
 art has marked, with a good degree of accu- 
 racy, in successive ages, the increase of luxury 
 and excessive sensual indulgence. 
 
 " Had it not been," says Dr. Cheyne, "for 
 the lewdness, luxury, and intemperate grati- 
 fication of the passions and appetites which 
 
20 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 first ruined and spoiled the constitution of 
 the fathers, whereby they could communicate 
 only a diseased, crazy, and untuneable car- 
 cass to their sons, there had never happened 
 so much sickness, pain, and misery, so un- 
 happy lives, and such wretched ends, as we 
 now behold among men." 
 
 That the sacred writings, therefore, should 
 furnish but little instruction on the subject of 
 the present discussion, however important to 
 so large a proportion of modern believers, is 
 easily accounted for. This has fallen rather 
 within the province of that science which 
 has grown out of the changed circumstances 
 of man, especially the great degeneracy in 
 his habits of living. But while we discover 
 in the Bible comparatively few of the ele- 
 ments of many modern theories concerning 
 this union of the soul and body, and the 
 moral results, yet they contain records of the 
 experience and exercises of the religious, and 
 of others, which afford many exemplifica- 
 tions of the fact. Such is supposed by some 
 to have been the distressing affection of 
 Saul, ascribed to an evil spirit from God, 
 the successive paroxysms of which were 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 21 
 
 allayed by the music of the son of Jesse. 
 Stackhouse thinks that it proceeded from 
 deep depression of spirits, or black bile in- 
 flamed, and that he was rather hypochon- 
 driac than possessed. Agreeable to this bad 
 complexion of body, was the natural temper 
 of his mind. 
 
 Another example is quoted in the case of 
 the Psalmist himself, when, in one of his 
 sacred songs, his harp is tuned to strains of 
 the deepest melancholy, and he mournfully 
 sings: My soul refused to be comforted. I 
 rememhered God, and was troubled; I com- 
 plained, and 7)iy sphnt was overwhelmed : 
 I am so troubled that I cannot speak. Will 
 the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be 
 favourable no more? Is his mercy clean 
 gone for ever? Hath God forgotten to 
 be gracious? And then he adds, / said 
 this is my infirmity; an expression which 
 means, as understood by some, that he sus- 
 pects the cause of his great depression to be 
 physical, or to proceed from the state of the 
 body. 
 
 Another illustration of this connexion, and 
 the influence of the material part over the 
 
22 INFLUENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 spiritual, has been drawn from the language 
 of the Saviour in his gentle rebuke of the 
 lethargy of the disciples in the garden of 
 Gethsemane. That they should have fallen 
 asleep under such circumstances, appeared 
 to themselves to admit of no apology, and 
 they did not attempt it. But on being awaked 
 by their Master, he kindly remarked, the 
 spirit is willing^ but the flesh is weak. 
 The delinquency was to be ascribed, not 
 so much to the state of their heart, as to 
 bodily fatigue; implying, as is commonly 
 understood, a mild reproof, at the same 
 time that it evinces the disposition of Christ 
 to regard it as evidence more of natural 
 infirmity than of guilt. The same inju- 
 rious influence of the earthly part is recog- 
 nized by the apostle Paul, in those numerous 
 passages of his writings in which he so 
 graphically describes the conflict between 
 the flesh and the spirit: I know that in me, 
 that is in my flesh, there dwelleth no good 
 thing, I delight in the law of God after the 
 inner man, h\it I see another law in my 
 members warring against the law of my 
 mind, bringing me, &c. In another place 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 23 
 
 he ascribes the inabiUty of the law to justify, 
 not to itself, but to a weakness through the 
 flesh. We are aware that the term flesh here 
 is used in a figurative sense, to signify the 
 remainder of natural corruption which still 
 adheres to the man, even after his moral state 
 has become changed by regenerating grace. 
 But the passages are none the less suited to 
 our purpose, inasmuch as they imply that the 
 organs of sense are made the instruments 
 through which the corruption of our nature 
 is developed, and its operation felt upon the 
 spiritual man. In this connexion, it may be 
 observed, that the writings of the fathers con- 
 tain numerous quotations from the serious 
 minded heathen, that show a striking coinci- 
 dence with the opinions of Paul on the sub- 
 ject of depravity, and especially the prejudi- 
 cial influence of the body. Tully's remark 
 is familiar to many — that men are brought 
 into life by nature, as a step-mother, with a 
 frail and infirm bofly, with a soul prone to 
 divers lusts. And what but this doctrine of 
 physical influence is perverted and carica- 
 tured in that motley mixture of Christianity 
 and Persian philosophy contained in the sys- 
 
24 INFLUENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 tern of the Manicheans of the third century 
 of the Christian era, concerning the two 
 principles of good and evil — the former of 
 which is represented as the creator of the 
 soul of man, and the latter of his body. 
 
 II. But if what the Scriptures contain on 
 this subject amounts only to hints or impli- 
 cations, rather than positive declarations, our 
 light is abundant when we come to the testi- 
 mony of science. The connexion and influ- 
 ence of which we speak, have been proved 
 and illustrated with great clearness by those 
 who have examined the structure of the hu- 
 man system, its capacities and functions, 
 organic, intellectual, and moral. Indeed it 
 is as fully implied in the abuses of this truth, 
 as it is taught in its legitimate uses. Thus it 
 has been made to furnish the basis of mate- 
 rialism under the milder, and, as understood 
 and taught by many, the innocent forms of 
 cranioscopy, craniology,* phrenology, &c., as 
 well as of that grosser system which makes 
 the soul of man a mere chymical combina- 
 tion, which contends that it is not a spiritual 
 substance, distinct from his body, but that the 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 25 
 
 principle within him which thinks is mate- 
 rial; and that reasoning and reflection are 
 functions of organized matter; which gravely 
 tells him that he grows like a vegetable, or 
 accretes like a crystal; or is attracted and 
 repulsed like a particle of iron exposed to 
 magnetic influence; that his brain secretes 
 thought, as his liver secretes bile; that be- 
 lieving and disbelieving are acts of the soul, 
 as is tasting of the body, and one is as desti- 
 tute of any moral character as the other; 
 and therefore that it is as absurd to suppose 
 a man blamable for being an atheist as for 
 being afllicted with an attack of the gout. 
 That such sentiments as these are as directly 
 at variance with sound science as they are 
 with revealed religion, it is gratuitous to as- 
 sert. In admitting, as we have done, that 
 this inexplicable union of the body and soul 
 may involve many truths which have not yet 
 been discovered, we do not concede that it 
 warrants any such atheistic corollaries as this. 
 It would be easy to show, that although 
 commended by names of some notoriety, yet 
 such a materialism is "a logical absurdi- 
 ty, and a total misconception of the first 
 
26 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 principles of philosophical inquiry." But as 
 it is our purpose in this disquisition to keep 
 within the province of Christian casuistry, 
 we think it better, in passing, rather to hint 
 at than quote, the numerous illustrations of 
 the present head, which are furnished by 
 physiology. Yet all may safely be granted 
 to the influence of the flesh upon the spirit, 
 which truth requires, without affording the 
 smallest grounds for those shocking conclu- 
 sions. 
 
 We know and admit, that the operations 
 of the intellect are closely allied to that soft 
 whitish mass, or viscus, lodged beneath the 
 arched bone of the head, which is called the 
 brain. Thus a blow which depresses a por- 
 tion of the skull upon the brain, will cause a 
 derangement or suspension of the mind's ope- 
 rations until such pressure is removed. A 
 man at the battle of Waterloo had a small por- 
 tion of his skull bone beat in upon the brain, 
 to the depth of half an inch. This caused 
 volition and sensation to cease, and he was 
 nearly in a lifeless state. So soon as the de- 
 pressed portion of bone was raised from the 
 brain, the man immediately arose, dressed 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 27 
 
 himself, became perfectly rational, and re- 
 covered rapidly. 
 
 It is also well ascertained, that the brain is 
 so connected with the digestive organs, that 
 the vigour of its action depends, in a great 
 degree, upon the healthful condition of them. 
 We know that the brain of an adult of ordi- 
 nary intellect is comparatively large, weigh- 
 ing about three and a half pounds, often a 
 little less. In some persons of uncommon 
 mind, it has been known to be much greater. 
 The brain of Byron, for instance, is said to 
 have weighed four and a half pounds, and 
 that of Baron Cuvier four pounds thirteen 
 ounces and a half. On the other hand, the 
 brain of an idiot does not exceed in size 
 that of a child a year old, or between one 
 and two pounds in weight. It has been 
 proved by measurement, that the heads of 
 great thinkers frequently continue to increase 
 until the subjects are fifty years of age, and 
 long after the other portions of the system 
 have ceased to enlarge. This was true of 
 Bonaparte, whose head, though small in 
 youth, in after life became enormous. The 
 reverse is known to occur in cases of pro- 
 
28 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 tracted insanity; not only the brain dimin- 
 ishes, but the skull itself has often sensibly 
 contracted, as is mentioned of Dean Swift, 
 who, in the latter part of his life, sunk into a 
 state of mental imbecility. 
 
 It is vain then to deny, that this wonderful 
 part of the body has much to do with the 
 manifestations of mind, though we know of 
 no warrant for the strange conceit of the 
 older physiologists, that there is some central 
 spot in that organ where all the messages 
 of the nerves are ultimately reported, and 
 whence all the orders of the will are issued ; 
 or for the figment of Descartes, that the pecu- 
 liar seat of the mind is the pineal gland. Nor 
 is it incredible, that a different combination 
 of the physical elements of the man, may 
 occasion a corresponding difference in the 
 character and qualities of the mind ; that a 
 genius for poetry or mathematics, for paint- 
 ing or music, may be connected with a pecu- 
 liar arrangement or disposition of some par- 
 ticles in the animal economy; in other words, 
 that the earthen vessel is so constructed in 
 some particulars, which escape the eye of 
 the anatomist, as to form a different mould, 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 29 
 
 or give a peculiar shape to the mind, accord- 
 ing to the sphere of usefulness for which it 
 is designed by its Creator. All this may be 
 true and not conflict with the teachings of 
 revelation. Indeed, for aught we know to 
 the contrary, it is comprehended in what the 
 Psalmist calls the "fearful and wonderful'' 
 construction of man. But in what way the 
 power of thought is originated, or how it is 
 atfected by the matter in which it seems to 
 be lodged, is perhaps as profound a secret to 
 Gabriel as it is to us; while the facts by which 
 the truth itself is demonstrated, are, many of 
 them, as affecting as ihey are familiar. Is 
 the body attacked and prostrated by disease, 
 it is sure of the sympathy of its spiritual 
 partner, which is often reduced to the feeble- 
 ness of infancy by the debility of the former. 
 lis perceptions become obtuse, the memory 
 fails, the power of attention is gone, as we 
 are often painfully admonished by discover- 
 ing that the conversation and counsels which 
 were given to the sick, their confessions, and 
 promises, and prayers, are all forgotten on 
 their recovery. Perhaps it is not recollected 
 even that we were once at their bed-side and 
 3 
 
so INFLUENCE OE PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 addressed them. Or, is the mind the object 
 of assault; how soon is it evinced in the de- 
 rangement of the functions of the body, ina- 
 bility to sleep, the loss of appetite for food, or 
 of power to digest it. Hence dyspepsia, that 
 malady so Protean in its forms, once gene- 
 rally thought to be a disease originating 
 always in the stomach, is now considered by 
 many of the most intelligent of the faculty 
 as primarily a disease of the brain and ner- 
 vous system, perpetuated by mental excite- 
 ment, especially in the case of students. 
 Hence it has been observed, that persons 
 who are in the habit of strongly employing 
 their mental faculties shortly after taking 
 food, are more or less subject to this affec- 
 tion. In such a case, the nervous energy 
 required for the process of digestion, instead 
 of being expended upon the stomach, is 
 wasted upon the intellectual organs. Who 
 has not noticed the physical effect of the 
 passions, such as joy, fear, jealousy, grief, 
 and despair? Sophocles, Chilo, Juventius, 
 Talma, and Fouquet, are said to have died 
 of excessive joy. A paroxysm of anger has 
 been known to induce an attack of jaundice. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 31 
 
 The teachings of Broussais respecting in- 
 flammation of the stomach, made such an 
 impression on the minds of many, we are 
 told, as to have greatly multipUed the cases in 
 Paris at the time; and affections of the heart, 
 either real, imaginary, or both, were produced 
 by the lectures of Corvisart on that organ, 
 who agrees with Testa, another writer on 
 the same subject, that the feeUngs have great 
 influence in changing the natural action of 
 the heart, and producing disorder. The lat- 
 ter author considered the powerful and irre- 
 gular operation of the passions as the most 
 frequent cause of organic disease of the 
 heart, which explains why this complaint 
 was so much more common in Italy during 
 seasons of political agitation, and especially 
 in France at the time of the revolution, than 
 at any other period. 
 
 A few years since, the hair on one half of 
 the head of a patient in the Pennsylvania 
 Hospital turned white, during a single night, 
 from the efl'ect of fear. The whole head of 
 Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. of 
 France, became white in one night from the 
 same cause. And Dr. Batchelder, speaking 
 
32 INFLUENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 of the medicinal effect of fear, mentions a 
 case of gout that was effectually expelled by 
 a sudden fright. 
 
 At the time that nitrous oxide excited 
 almost universal attention, professor Wood- 
 house tested the power of the mind upon the 
 body in several persons, who were anxious 
 to breathe the gas. He administered to them 
 ten gallons of atmospherical air, in doses of 
 from four to six quarts. Impressed with the 
 idea that they were inhaling the exhilarating 
 gas, they soon began to exhibit the usual 
 quickness of pulse, vertigo, ringing in the 
 ears, difficulty of breathing, faintness, weak- 
 ness of the knees, and nausea, which lasted 
 from six to eight hours. Witness, moreover, 
 the physical efiects of excited passions in cases 
 of mental derangement. How often has the 
 most athletic and vigorous frame soon be- 
 come racked and broken under the ravings 
 of insanity, until its vital powers were ex- 
 tinguished. 
 
 With these preliminary remarks of a gene- 
 ral character, we pass on to the main and 
 more interesting part of our inquiry — the 
 illustrations of this connexion between the 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 33 
 
 outer and inner man, as furnished by Chris- 
 tian Experience. 
 
 III. We have ah'eady said, that it is a sub- 
 ject which is worthy of the attention of all, 
 whatever their character, moral or religious; 
 but it is more particularly the case of the 
 latter that this investigation contemplates. 
 It is to show the constant and yet often unsus- 
 pected actings of the flesh, with its unnum- 
 bered infirmities, upon the spirit; and that the 
 devotional exercises of the latter are greatly 
 affected by the physical condition of the for- 
 mer. And if the foregoing observations have 
 been uninteresting, or unitelligible to any, 
 there are those who will understand us now. 
 Here we strike a chord which will vibrate more 
 or less on every changed heart that has been 
 given to the study of its own exercises. No 
 person accustomed to notice his various reli- 
 gious frames, can have failed to perceive that 
 these are closely allied to what is usually 
 denominated his "constitution." Is there 
 such a blending of the juices of the animal 
 economy as to produce what is called a 
 nervous temperament, or that excess of bile 
 
34 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 which makes it melancholy? Or is the man 
 gentle or serene, sanguine or timid, cheerful 
 or sad, you will find that these idiosyncrasies 
 will not be merged and lost in the changes 
 wrought by regenerating grace. His religion 
 will not so neutralize and remove the cause 
 of his lowness of spirits, his timidity, or 
 whatever it may be that is peculiar to his 
 nature, as to make him at all times cheerful 
 and self-possessed. The bashful man will be 
 a bashful Christian ; and the bold man, con- 
 stitutionally, will be bold in a state of grace. 
 After all that the Spirit has accomplished in 
 each, it will still be true in all, that the reli- 
 gious character will be tinctured by that of 
 the natural man, as the liquor put into an 
 old cask commonly receives a strong tang 
 from the vessel. 
 
 Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem 
 Testa diu. 
 
 Tlie odours of the wine, that first shall stain 
 The virgin vessel, it shall long retain. — Francis. 
 
 In this respect the Spirit's operation on the 
 soul has been happily compared to the work 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 35 
 
 of a sculptor, who makes a statue of wooci, of 
 stone, or of marble, indifferently according to 
 the material put into his hand. So the Spi- 
 rit in forming the new man still retains so 
 much of the old as to make it evident what 
 is the rock from ichich he was hewn. Nor 
 is it a less interesting fact, that this gracious 
 influence is so exerted in the various con- 
 ditions of life, where it is felt, as to qualify 
 the soul for the appropriate duties of its par- 
 ticular station. Does regenerating grace find 
 a man in high life or humble, in Caesar's 
 household, among the fishermen of Galilee, 
 or the servants of Philemon, it requires no 
 change in his place, but works a change on 
 his heart, and gives new help to discharge 
 his duties better. The same Holy Spirit who 
 makes a Christian master gentle and prudent 
 in commanding, makes a Christian servant 
 faithful and cheerful in obeying; as the 
 astrologers said of Cyrus, that the same stars 
 which made him to be chosen king amongst 
 the armies of men, when he came to be a 
 man, made him to be chosen king among the 
 shepherds' children when he was a child. 
 In rearing the New Testament temple of the 
 
36 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 Redeemer on earth, there is the same occasion 
 for various gifts and kinds of service, that 
 there was in the magnificent structure of Solo- 
 mon. And hence the innocent and useful 
 differences between men, in their fallen state, 
 are preserved and turned to a profitable ac- 
 count in their recovery. See a familiar illus- 
 tration of this in the original teachers of the 
 gospel, or the twelve apostles. Simon Peter 
 was by natural temperament, ardent, san- 
 guine, precipitate ; and this characteristic of 
 the natural man is continually betraying itself 
 after his conversion. You observe it in his 
 conversations with his Master ; his bold pro- 
 fessions, hasty promises, which opened the 
 way for his sifting by Satan, and his lamenta- 
 ble fail. After the resurrection, see him run- 
 ning with John to visit the sepulchre ; and 
 while his timid and cautious companion stoops 
 down at first, and only ventures to look into 
 the place, the intrepid Peter rushes by and 
 plunges into the gloomy abode of the dead, 
 examines the very spot where the sacred 
 dust had rested, and the linen clothes in 
 which it had been wrapped. Both of them 
 regenerated men, and men perhaps of equal 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 37 
 
 piety; but very unlike before their conver- 
 sion, and scarcely more alike afterwards. 
 
 Look next at Paul, whose lofty bearing, 
 and undaunted courage by nature, was not 
 a whit impaired, but only sanctified by grace, 
 and retained to the end of his life. See Lu- 
 ther and Melancthon, as opposite in their 
 Christian character as they were in their ori- 
 ginal temperament. " Melancthon," says Ce- 
 cil, " is like a snail with his couple of horns : 
 he puts out his horns and feels — and feels — 
 and feels. No education could have rendered 
 these two men alike. Their difference began 
 in the womb. Luther dashes in saying his 
 things : Melancthon must go round about." 
 The same divine influence had wrought 
 efiectually on the heart of both ; yet, like 
 the statue of which we spoke, the image cor- 
 responded to the material out of wh;ch it had 
 been constructed. That any amount of spi- 
 ritual influence should ever destroy these 
 physical characteristics and make men of 
 such divers temperaments alike, is to be ex- 
 pected no more, than that it should make 
 them of one stature, or give them the same 
 features or complexion. 
 4 
 
38 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 It will be recollected how Caesar recog- 
 nizes the influence of temperament, when he 
 objected to Cassias, because he was "lean 
 and thought too much." He wished to have 
 around him 
 
 "Sleek headed men, and such as sleep o' nights. 
 Would he were falter." 
 
 But there, are other, and in some respects 
 more marked and painful illustrations, in the 
 morbid experience of some Christians, which 
 are at once an effect and a symptom of the 
 state of their health. We speak of such 
 as are familiarly said to look only at the dark 
 side of every object, and are imwilhng to en- 
 gage in any enterprise, from an anticipation 
 of its faiUire. Whether the happiness of this 
 world or the next be their pursuit, the pros- 
 pect is cheered by scarcely a ray of hope. 
 Such a tendency to gloom is a thorn in the 
 flesh, by which they are often tormented; 
 nor is any class more exposed to the butfet- 
 ings of this minister of Satan, than the 
 teachers of religion. How often do we wit- 
 ness the sad spectacle of those whose mani- 
 fold bodily infirmities, brought on by seden- 
 tary habits, great anxiety, or excessive study 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 39 
 
 and exhaustion of sensorial power, defraud 
 them of all the consolations of that benignant 
 system of faith which they are enabled to ex- 
 pound so successfully to others. Instead of 
 an open cheerful expression of countenance, 
 we often see a Avrinkled, contracted, sinister 
 look, which speaks any thing but in favour 
 of the benign religion of the gospel. Thus, 
 Christianity itself is made to suffer from the 
 physical sufferings of its professors and ex- 
 pounders. The light-minded and thoughtless 
 imbibe a prejudice against it, from observing 
 the care-worn and sorrowful features of some 
 of its advocates. They think it to be a legiti- 
 mate effect of their principles, and are made to 
 shun the places, and books, and people whose 
 influence appears to be so detrimental to all 
 earthly enjoyment. Unhappily, these out- 
 ward tokens of disquietude are but too signi- 
 ficant of what is passing within. If the face 
 be covered with gloom, it is only an index of 
 the state of such a Christian's heart, when in 
 the retirement of his closet he pours out its 
 exercises, in lamentations, and confessions of 
 sin, and supplications for relief At one 
 time, he feels that he has grieved the Spirit, 
 
40 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 that his best services are only hypocritical 
 forms, and surely God has forsaken him. 
 His heart appears like the nether millstone, 
 and his bosom the cage of every unclean bird. 
 The arrows of the Alviighty are within him, 
 the poison whereof drinketh up his spirit, 
 and the terrors of God do set themselves in 
 array against him. Again the scene is 
 wholly changed; the turbid current of his 
 thoughts has become clear as crystal. The 
 rain is over and gone, and the time of the 
 singing of birds is come. The change in his 
 exercises is like the transition from the ter- 
 rific tempest to the serene sky, and air, and 
 pleasant sun that follow it. Or ever he is 
 aware his soul makes him like the chariots 
 of Jlmminadib. His doubts are solved, his 
 fears are gone, and his present joys perhaps 
 are in proportion to his previous sadness. He 
 is brought into Christ's banqueting house, 
 and the banner over him is love. He is 
 stayed with flagons and comforted with 
 apples and restored to the joys of salvation. 
 
 That such spiritual fluctuations as these, to 
 which so many Christians are subject, are 
 very often produced by physical causes, is as 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 41 
 
 capable of proof, as it is that an excited pulse 
 and increased heat are symptoms of fever. 
 They are the reflected influence of some 
 bodily malady upon the soul. Thus, how 
 many have discovered that their periods of 
 spiritual depression are always contempora- 
 ,neous with periodical changes in their physi- 
 cal condition, or with that sort of indisposi- 
 tion which proceeds from gastric derange- 
 ment or an aflection of the liver. How many 
 thousands are daily aff'ected by changes in the 
 atmosphere, scarcely less than was Dr. Fran- 
 cia. Dictator of Paraguay, whose most extra- 
 vagant outbreaks of passion, and cruel exer- 
 tions of despotic power generally occurred 
 during his seasons of hypochondria, which 
 were most frequent when the wind was 
 north-east, but which ended with a change 
 to south-west, when he would begin to sing 
 and laugh to himself, and was readily acces- 
 sible. The cases in which this sort of morbid 
 suffering is exemplified are so numerous, that 
 their name is Legion. They find that their 
 state while here "is a conjunction of their 
 soul to a frail distempered body, and so near 
 a conjunction that the actions of the soul 
 
42 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 must have great dependence on the body. 
 Its apprehensions of spiritual good are Uniited 
 by the frailty of the body, and the soul can 
 go no higher than the body will allow." We 
 have known instances in which the seasons 
 of spiritual joy and depression alternated 
 like an intermittent disease, coming and de- 
 parting at regular intervals. A venerable 
 clergyman still living, who has suffered 
 greatly from nervous affections, long since 
 discovered this to be characteristic of his own, 
 viz : that when the period of gloom and 
 distress did not terminate for two or three 
 weeks, it would in the mean time recur only 
 every other day. But the more common 
 cases are those in which the cloud, when 
 gathered, remains suspended and unmoved 
 for days or weeks, with scarcely a gleam of 
 sunshine. Such a sufferer was the late emi- 
 nently learned and pious Isaac Milner, Dean 
 of Carlisle, whose extraordinary talents and 
 attainments in science were conceded by all, 
 and whose genuine piety was questioned by 
 none but himself. And yet, while the source 
 of so nmch light and spiritual instruction to 
 others, he was often an opaque and cheerless 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 43 
 
 body to himself. ^' Though I have endeavour- 
 ed to discharge my duty as well as I could/' 
 he writes to Mr. Wilberforce, "yet sadness 
 and melancholy of heart stick close by and 
 increase upon me. I tell nobody, but I am 
 very much sunk indeed, and. I wish I could 
 have the relief of weeping as I used to do.'' 
 Again, in writing to another, a clerical friend, 
 he says, " my views have of late been ex- 
 ceedingly dark and distressing; in a word, 
 AUnighty God seems to hide his face. I en- 
 trust the secret hardly to any earthly being. 
 I know not what will become of me. There 
 is doubtless a good deal of bodily affection 
 mingled with this, but it is not all so. I bless 
 God, however, that I never lose sight of the 
 cross; and though I should die without see- 
 ing any personal interest in the Redeemer's 
 merits — I think, I hope, that I should be 
 found at his feet. I will thank you for a 
 word at your leisure. My door is bolted at 
 the time of my writing this, for I am full of 
 tears." Such spiritual sadness is easily ac- 
 counted for, when it is understood that Dr. 
 Milner was for upwards of forty years a vic- 
 tim of some of the most distressing complaints 
 
44 INFLUENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 that flesh is heir to. Spasms in his stomach, 
 severe and uninterrupted headaches, oppres- 
 sion of the breath, broken shimbers, disturb- 
 ed by frightful dreams, were among the dis- 
 eases which caused his physicians to tell him, 
 many years before his death, that with such 
 a pulse as his, a man's life was not worth 
 one minute. 
 
 Another example is furnished by Richard 
 Baxter, in whose practical and devotional 
 writings it is easy to discover the constitution- 
 al habits and quaUties of the man. No person, 
 not inspired, ever wrote more graphically of 
 heaven and hell, as if he had visited both, and 
 had come back to the earth again to exhort 
 men to seek the one and escape the other. 
 But notwithstanding his preeminent piety, 
 yet during his early years, his mind was 
 greatly troubled with doubts about his own 
 salvation, promoted, says his biographer, by 
 the particular cast of his mind, and the state 
 of his body. And though habitually under 
 the government of religious principles, it is 
 well known, that he had certain besetting in- 
 firmities of temper, which are among the 
 most common diagnostics of what were some 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 45 
 
 01 his manifold diseases. The late Dr. Pay- 
 son was another, whose vibrations of Chris- 
 tian feeling, from the joyous to the sad, the 
 cheerful to the desponding and melancholy, 
 are scarcely less notorious than were his un- 
 common zeal and ministerial success. The 
 cause is at once explained, when his biogra- 
 pher tells us that his physical conformation 
 was of a very delicate structure, extremely 
 sensitive, and easily excited, so that nervous 
 irritability and consequent depression were 
 an ingredient in his nature. Hence, he adds, 
 we have seen him writing bitter things 
 against himself, for causes which, with a dif- 
 ferent temperament, would have given him 
 little uneasiness. The case of David Brain- 
 erd, the apostolic missionary, is in some res- 
 pects more marked and instructive on this 
 subject, than even Payson's. But it is easy 
 to make the almost opposite and contradic- 
 tory details of his diary harmonize with one 
 another, and both with eminent godliness, 
 when the writer of his Memoirs, President 
 Edwards, tells us of his frail health, and of 
 his constitutional proneness to dejection and 
 melancholy. His wilUng spirit would have 
 
46 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 made him a rival of Paul, but under the 
 weakness of his flesh, he sunk before he 
 reached the age of thirty. 
 
 Such illustrations need not be multiplied, 
 and yet we cannot forbear to advert, for a mo- 
 ment, before we pass on, to the touching case 
 of one in whose character there is an abiding 
 interest, which afl'ords a guaranty that the 
 repetition, even of that which is familiarly 
 known, will not be tiresome. And perhaps 
 within the range of casuistic research, we 
 could not find a more affecting instance of 
 morbid religious affection, than that of Cow- 
 per. How long his mind was shrouded in. 
 darkness, and racked with the most fearful 
 forebodings, is as widely known as is his 
 name. In one of liis somewhat playful 
 moods, when writing to the Rev. John New- 
 ton, '' my thoughts," he says, ^^are clad in a 
 sober livery, for the most part as grave as that 
 of a bishop's servant. They turn, too, upon 
 spiritual subjects; but the tallest fellow, and 
 the loudest among them all, is he who is con- 
 tinually crying out with a loud voice, actum 
 est de te, periisti — it is all over, you are lost." 
 But what was the state of iiis mind for many 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 47 
 
 years, is no where described in more affecting 
 terms tlian in the last original poem which 
 he ever wrote, and which he called the Cast- 
 away. It was founded on an incident men- 
 tioned in Lord Anson's Voyages, which he 
 had read many years before, though the con- 
 cluding stanzas show, that the real subject of 
 his muse was not the sufferer mentioned by 
 Anson : for having described the case of the 
 unhappy mariner, his being washed headlong 
 from on board, 
 
 " Of friends, of hope, of all bereft ;" 
 
 his sinking beneath the " whelming brine:" 
 then rising to the surface, struggling among 
 the waves, his crying for help, the efforts 
 made to save him, the mournful sound of 
 his voice heard in every blast by his com- 
 rades, as the ship was driven farther and 
 farther from him, till they 
 
 "Could catch the sound no more;" 
 
 when, overcome at length, and exhausted, he 
 sunk; the poet then adds: 
 
 " I therefore purpose not, or dream. 
 Descanting on his fate, 
 To give the melancholy theme 
 A more enduring date ; 
 
4S INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 But misery delights to trace 
 Its semblance in another's case. 
 
 No voice divine the storm allayed, 
 
 No light propitious shone; 
 
 When snatched from all effectual aid, 
 
 We perish'd each alone ; 
 But I beneath a rougher sea, 
 Am whelmed in deeper gulfs than he." 
 
 That the cause of Cowper^s spiritual de- 
 pression was disease, has been abundantly 
 proved to all, unless it be those "who would 
 far sooner tolerate a poet's being a madman 
 than his being a saint." His despondency- 
 was produced by physical causes, which 
 could not be removed by reasoning, any 
 more than a headach or a paroxysm of the 
 gout. Like other valetudinarians of a par- 
 ticular class, his nerves were as sensitive to 
 atmospheric changes, as is the mercury of 
 the barometer. He was joyful or sad, as the 
 day was serene or cloudy. " 1 rise cheerless 
 or distressed," says he to one of his friends, 
 " and brighten as the sun goes on." He had 
 his four seasons of feeling, as the revolving 
 earth described the four grand stages of the 
 sun's progress in the ecliptic. Thus, in an- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 49 
 
 Other of his letters, he says : ^' I now see a long 
 winter before me, and am to get through it 
 as 1 can. I know the ground before I tread 
 upon it: it is hollow; it is agitated; it suffers 
 shocks in every direction; it is like the soil 
 of Calabria — all whirlpool and undulation. 
 But I must reel through it; at least, if I be 
 not swallowed up by the way." 
 
50 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 USES OF KNOWLEDGE ON THIS SUBJECT. 
 
 I was a stricken deer that left the herd, 
 
 Long since. With many an arrow dnep infixed 
 
 My panting sides were charged.— Cowper. 
 
 Though the character of this discussion as 
 well as its Hmited scope, have precluded 
 many important remarks which come within 
 the province of the physiologist, yet much 
 that might be written is rendered unnecessa- 
 ry, by a knowledge which many derive from 
 their own experience. It is a subject which, 
 as we have said before, is too little examined 
 and understood. "Manyof our young preach- 
 ers," says Dr. Alexander, in his instructive 
 book on Religious Experience, " when they 
 go forth on their important errand, are poorly 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 51 
 
 qualified to direct the doubting conscience, or 
 to administer safe consolation to the troubled 
 in spirit. And in modern preaching there is 
 little account made of the various distressing 
 cases of deep affliction under which many 
 serious persons are suffering.'^ To no small 
 proportion of the religious, both teachers and 
 people, it seems to be a profound secret, how- 
 much the exercises of a changed heart may- 
 be affected by the health or the condition of 
 the body. And is a man unable to judge him- 
 self, much less is he qualified to meet the nu- 
 merous cases that are almost daily presented 
 in an extensive pastoral charge, when un- 
 skilled to distinguish withi some degree of 
 accuracy, between influences which proceed 
 from the body, and the principles, disposi- 
 tion, and state of the soul. As a part of his 
 furniture for some of the most responsible 
 labours of his calling, he needs a thorough 
 acquaintance with a subject so closely con- 
 nected with Christian experience. The prac- 
 tical uses of the knowledge of which we 
 come to speak now, cannot be fully enume- 
 rated, nor adequately described. As the 
 apostle says of the inspired truth which he 
 
52 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 commends to Timothy, we would say, that 
 it is profitable — 
 
 1. For doctrine. 
 
 We mean to say, that here is presented a 
 theory in casuistic divinity which solves in- 
 numerable cases of constant occurrence, by 
 which many are often confounded without it. 
 It is admitted, that there is a difficulty to be 
 encountered, in turning such doctrine on the 
 subject of our spiritual maladies to a benefi- 
 cial result, on account of the inability to con- 
 vince the sufferer of the real cause of his des- 
 pondency. He seems to lack the'capacity of 
 perceiving, or of applying the sort of truth 
 which his case requires, however plainly it 
 may be set before him; for it is rare, as Presi- 
 dent Edwards observes, in speaking of Brain- 
 erd, that melancholy people are sensible of 
 their own disease — and that such things are 
 to be ascribed to it as are undoubtedly its ge- 
 nuine fruits or effects. Otherwise we should 
 be amazed at the perplexity anddisconsolate- 
 ness of some excellent characters, and the 
 readiness with which they refuse to be com- 
 forted. Even the acute and discriminating 
 Dr. Rush, so skilful in explaining and reliev- 
 ing the maladies of others, was utterly de- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 53 
 
 ceived in relation to his own. His Essay on 
 the Influence of Physical Causes upon the 
 Moral Faculty, evinces mature reflection, and 
 accurate knowledge on this subject; and yet, 
 when, in a state of religious despondency him- 
 self, he was assured by his pastor that it was 
 a symptom of disease, he could not believe 
 it. Nor did he become fully convinced that 
 the cause of his spiritual distress was physi- 
 cal, until it had been removed by the im- 
 provement of his general health. Indeed it 
 is commonly found, that where mental de- 
 pression results from impaired health, our at- 
 tempts to relieve the mind by counsel, tend 
 ratiier to aggravate its sorrow, so long as the 
 physical cause remains unmitigated. 
 
 In the last illness of the commentator Scott, 
 his mind was observed by his friends to be 
 gloomy, during the paroxysm of his fever; 
 nor could his comfort be restored by any 
 counsels of his pious attendants, until the 
 fever had abated. Andrew Fuller also suf- 
 fered greatly on his deathbed, from a similar 
 cause. So when Dr. Madan once attempted 
 to calm the mind of Cowper, by quotations 
 from the Scriptures, it served only to increase 
 5 
 
54 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 his sufferings. It was then at the commence- 
 ment of a slow nervous fever to which he 
 was hable; but after four months skilful 
 treatment by Dr. Cotton, his health was so 
 far improved that the promises of the gospel 
 were apprehended without hesitation, and 
 whatever his friend Madan had said to him 
 long before, revived in all its clearness. 
 
 We have known persons, says an aged 
 preacher of the gospel still in the ministry, 
 poor in spirit, hungering and thirsting after 
 righteousness, glorying only in the cross of 
 Christ, and yet gloomily concluding that they 
 have no lot nor part in the matter, and that 
 their heart is not right with God. And why? 
 The reason is to be found in something be- 
 yond the preacher's province; and till there 
 is a change in the animal economy, all the 
 succours of religion are in vain. 
 
 2. Another profitable use of this subject 
 is, for the promotion of charity. 
 
 So far as it is understood and practically 
 felt, it will make us pause before we censure 
 those of our brethren whose condition rather 
 claims our condolence and hearty commisera- 
 tion. We think them morose, hypochondriac, 
 or misanthropic; assail them with raillery and 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 55 
 
 banter, and anon with reproof for feelings of 
 sadness, which they can no more resist or 
 control, than they can prevent a flushed 
 cheek in fever, or a yellow skin in jaundice. 
 We might as well jeer at Dr. Watts for his 
 pigmy size, at Pope for his deformity, or at 
 jMilton for his blindness. And yet there are 
 many in society, even among the intelligent, 
 who are accustomed to treat all such cases 
 of nervous disorder, as only imaginary com- 
 plaints, which are better managed by ridi- 
 cule than by sober counsel, whether medical 
 or religious. In order to cure them, they 
 think it necessary only to divert the attention 
 of the suflerer, and convince him that he will 
 be well enough and recover his lost cheerful- 
 ness, if he will but cease to brood over his 
 own wretchedness, mix in society, and think 
 of other things beside himself. " Many will 
 say to such an one, ^Why do you so pore 
 over your case, and thus gratify the devil?' 
 Whereas it is the very nature of the disease 
 to cause such fixed musing. You might as 
 well say to a man in a fever, ^ Why are you 
 not well? why will you be sick?' Some, 
 indeed, suppose that the melancholy hug their 
 
56 INFLUENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 disease and are unwilling to give it up. You 
 might as well suppose that a man would be 
 pleased with lying on a bed of thorns.'^ The 
 reason of their utter misapprehension of such 
 cases, is their own happy exemption from all 
 that sort of morbid wretchedness which they 
 treat with sd much levity in others, without 
 knowing what they do. To persons of this 
 description, moreover, all our disquisitions on 
 the moral effect of physical causes, are much 
 like a treatise in Tamul or Hindostanee: they 
 have no just conception of our meaning, nor 
 of the utiUty of what we say. Nor is it 
 among the lighter afflictions of the subjects 
 of nervQus affections, that they receive so 
 little charity or sympathy from others whose 
 general intelligence, and especially religious 
 pretensions, would warrant them to expect 
 more courtesy at least, if not greater tender- 
 ness. But if our subject is unintelligible to 
 some, it is not so to others; we describe an 
 experience with which they are wofully fa- 
 miliar ; and while they are not slow to con- 
 demn themselves for their fretfulness, irrita- 
 bility of temper, and many obliquities of feel- 
 ing and conduct which they so frequently be- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 57 
 
 tray, yet their faults, however numerous, will 
 be judged with least severity by those who 
 best understand the cause. With nerves so 
 disordered and unstrung, there is need of far 
 more vigilance and prayer, to even appear 
 cheerful and amiable, than most good men, 
 without very special grace, are able to main- 
 tain. "A man may be a good performer, but 
 what can he do whh a disordered instrument? 
 The occupant of a house may have good eyes, 
 but how can he see accurately through a 
 soiled window? Let the organ be put in 
 tune, and the glass be made clean, before you 
 call in question the musical skill of the one, 
 or the eyesight of the other.'' In his excellent 
 counsels on the subject of spiritual depression 
 and melancholy, the Rev. Timothy Rogers, 
 who lived in London near the close of the 
 seventeenth century, enjoins it upon their 
 friends to treat persons thus afflicted with 
 great compassion, and never use harsh lan- 
 guage to them when suffering from this cause. 
 This will only serve to fret and perplex them 
 the more, but will never confer any benefit. 
 "From my own experience I can testify," 
 says he, "that the mild and gentle way of 
 dealing with such is the best.'' 
 
53 INFLUENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 3. Another most important use of this sub- 
 ject, is for repi'oof and correction. 
 
 When thoroughly examined and well un- 
 derstood, it exposes and explodes the popu- 
 lar error in relation to those disordered states 
 of the mind that are supposed by many to be 
 produced by rehgion. Such events are deplo- 
 rable whenever they occur, and whatever the 
 occasion; but it would certainly be a remark- 
 able exception to the general doctrines of phi- 
 losophy as well as of religion, if it could be 
 proved that these are the legitimate effect of 
 so pure and benignant a cause. "This one 
 thing I must testify/' says Dr. Alexander, 
 " that I never knew the most pungent con- 
 victions of sin to terminate in insanity; and 
 as to the affections of love to God and the 
 lively hope of everlasting life producing in- 
 sanity, it is toa absurd for any one to believe 
 it." We readily concede that this belongs 
 to a legion of evils, intellectual and moral as 
 well as physical, which are the natural pro- 
 duct of fanaticism and superstition; and this 
 explains the fact, that before the revolution 
 so large a proportion of the insane in France 
 were monks. Indeed, it is difhcult to account 
 for many of the effects of enthusiasm in any 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 59 
 
 Other way, than by supposing it to be a spe- 
 cies of insanity in which the aberration re- 
 lates usually to one subject, while in others 
 the judgment is sound. And it is perfectly 
 obvious, that the greatly multiplied cases of 
 this kind of mental disorder at the present 
 time, in different parts of our country, are 
 the offspring of certain epidemical delusions 
 by which we have been sorely afflicted of 
 late, and which have been promoted by 
 nothing so much, as by the notice of others, 
 and especially their attempts to suppress 
 them by coercion. But we are sustained, 
 not by the highest medical authority only, 
 but by a faithful examination of the statis- 
 tics of insanity, when we assert that the hal- 
 lucinations of those persons whose mental 
 disorder is imputed to religion, "are the re- 
 sult of pre-existing disease, and only take 
 their form from the accidental liabits and 
 feelings of the patients." This has been so 
 fully demonstrated, that scarcely any modern 
 writer of eminence advocates the opposite 
 opinion. From the numerous authors whose 
 testimony is easily accessible, we will quote 
 a paragraph from two or three, who are in 
 
60 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 the highest repute. "In regard to what are 
 called the moral causes of insanity/' says 
 Dr. Abercrombie, "I suspect there has been 
 a good deal of fallacy arising from consider- 
 ing as a moral cause, that which was really 
 a part of the disease. This, I think, applies 
 in a peculiar manner to the important subject 
 of religion, which by a common but very 
 loose method of speaking, is often mentioned 
 as a cause of insanity. But where there is 
 a constitutional tendency to insanity, or to 
 melancholy, one of its leading modifications, 
 every subject is distorted to which the mind 
 can be directed; and none more frequently 
 or more remarkably, than religious belief. 
 This, however, is the effect, not the cause; 
 and the various forms which it assumes, may 
 be ascribed to the subject being one to which 
 the minds of all men are so naturally directed 
 in one degree or another, and of which no 
 man living can divest himself." 
 
 "There is not a tittle of evidence," says 
 Dr. Burrowes in his well known work on 
 insanity, "to substantiate that Christianity, 
 abstractedly, ever made a person insane. 
 Such an accusation is only one of the abor- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 61 
 
 tions of infidelity, or of those who lack know- 
 ledge." 
 
 Says Dr. John Cheyne, author of a most 
 interesting work on partial derangement of 
 mind in supposed connexion with religion, 
 "We never saw a case of mental derange- 
 ment, even where it was traceable to a moral 
 cause, in which there was not reason to be- 
 lieve that bodily disease could have been de- 
 tected before the earliest aberration, had an 
 opportunity of examination been offered. 
 Not only does every deranged state of the 
 intellectual faculties and the natural affec- 
 tions depend upon bodily disease, but de- 
 rangements of the religious and moral senti- 
 ments also.'' 
 
 And, not to multiply authorities, we will 
 add no more than a paragraph from Dr. 
 Combe, who, in full concurrence with the 
 others, maintains that "when fairly exam- 
 ined, the danger is seen to arise solely from 
 the abuse of religion; and indeed, that the 
 best safeguard is found in a right understand- 
 ing of its principles and submission to its 
 precepts. For if the best Christian be he, 
 who in meekness, humility, and sincerity, 
 6 
 
i)2 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 places his trust in God and seeks to fulfill all 
 his commandments, then he who exhausts 
 his soul in devotion, and at the same time 
 finds no leisure or no inclination for attend- 
 ing to the common duties of his station, and 
 who, so far from arriving at happiness or 
 peace of mind, becomes every day the more 
 estranged from them, and finds himself at 
 last involved in disease and despair, cannot 
 be held as a follower of Christ, but must 
 rather be held as the follower of a phantom 
 assuming the aspect of religion. When in- 
 sanity attacks the latter, it is obviously not 
 religion that is the cause; it is only the abuse 
 of certain feelings, the regulated activity of 
 which is necessary to the right exercise of 
 religion ; and against such abuse, a sense of 
 true religion would have been the most pow- 
 erful protection." 
 
 Within the sphere of our own pastoral 
 labours, there have occurred four cases of 
 this species of mental disorder, three of which 
 were connected with known physical de- 
 rangement. Two were effectually relieved 
 after a few months, by judicious medical 
 treatment, though one of them was so aggra- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 63 
 
 vated that the person attempted suicide, and 
 on one occasion nearly effected it; the third 
 still lingers, the sufferer being a victim of 
 bodily disease. In the fourth there was a 
 constitutional wildness on other subjects than 
 that of religion; and although his tempera- 
 ment was sanguine, his mind habitually 
 cheerful, and his hope of salvation uncom- 
 monly firm, yet in a moment of temptation 
 he was overcome, and destroyed himself. 
 Another, whom we have known for twenty 
 years, and esteemed as a man of more than 
 ordinary intellect and piety, has long been 
 subject to periods of religious melancholy, 
 when he suspends his business, loses all inte- 
 rest in society, withdraws to his chamber, 
 and remains for weeks and months, until the 
 cloud of spiritual gloom has passed; he then 
 returns to his secular duties and to the church, 
 as if he had never been otherwise than cheer- 
 ful and happy in his religion, which is at all 
 times, in sickness or health, his main topic of 
 conversation. No allusion is made to the 
 past, there are no inquiries, and he volun- 
 teers to give no information; nor have his 
 friends or physicians ever been able to ex- 
 
64 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 plain all the phenomena of this case by any 
 of the known doctrines of psychology, phy- 
 siology, or religion. That his melancholy is 
 not produced by his religion, would appear 
 from the fact, that at all other times it is the 
 source of his highest enjoyment. But as it 
 regards the cause of these periodical chang6s 
 in his physical condition which occasion this 
 spiritual occultation, we do not hazard a con- 
 jecture. 
 
 But this injurious influence on the mind 
 has been ascribed, not so much to religion 
 in general, as to certain forms or sectarian 
 modes in which it has been expounded, and 
 that are slipposed to be peculiarly adapted 
 to fill the soul with gloom and despondency. 
 Hence the maxim so long in vogue among 
 the Romanists, " Spiritus Calvinianus, est 
 spiritus melancholicus," (so nearly English 
 that we need not translate it.) Even Esqui- 
 rol more than hints at Calvinism as in some 
 cases, the cause of religious melancholy; and 
 it is well known that the sentiment wrapped 
 up in this calumnious apothegm, was a 
 popular solution of the unhappy case of 
 Cowper. Thus^ a writer in the Encyclo- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 65 
 
 pedia Britannica at that time, with great 
 confidence ascribed his mental malady to 
 the theory of justification which he had 
 adopted, his natural disposition fitting him 
 to receive all the horrors, without the conso- 
 lations of his faith. Babington Macauley 
 also favours the same opinion, by pronounc- 
 ing the religious teachers of the poet " worthy 
 of incineration." Nor is there any thing, we 
 are constrained to say, in the over cautious, 
 imperfect,and disingenuous, however interest- 
 ing Memoirs by Haley, that forbids this infer- 
 ence. And yet, it could not but have been 
 known by the author,or rathercompilerof that 
 work, that the period of his life during which 
 he enjoyed, together with the unclouded sun- 
 shine of reason, the peace and joy of re- 
 ligion, was the interval from 1764 to 1773, 
 when he believed and openly professed every 
 article of his faith, the effect of which was 
 represented as afterward being so calami- 
 tous. It was then that his character was 
 exhibited in all its attractiveness, unveiled 
 by any of the mists that had come over it 
 before, and which gathered again toward 
 
66 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 the close of his life. He was more cheerful 
 and affectionate in his intercourse, partaking 
 with lively interest in the common concerns 
 of society, and happy in the enjoyment of 
 his religion ; and when he became subse- 
 quently the victim of his afflictive hallucina- 
 tion, he could not avoid acknowledging that 
 his gloomy persuasion was at variance with 
 every article of his creed, and he was driven 
 to regard himself as an inexplicable excep- 
 tion to his own principles. Religious truth 
 of any kind, had nothing to do as a procuring 
 cause of Cowper's malady. It was as clearly 
 a case of hypochondriasis as are those in- 
 stances in which the patient has fancied him- 
 self a " tea pot or a sack of wool, or has im- 
 agined his thinking substance destroyed." 
 
 We maintain then, that this unhappy con- 
 dition, which, without due examination, has 
 been imputed to religion, is an effect pro- 
 duced by physical causes. That a different 
 opinion should have obtained to any ex- 
 tent, is to be ascribed to misapprehension, 
 perhaps in part, but we doubt not that 
 more frequently, it may be traced to another 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 67 
 
 source, which is thus noticed by Dr. Cheyne. 
 "When a man from having been worldly be- 
 comes religious, there is no one against whom 
 prejudice is stronger. No change is less 
 agreeable, not even a change from respecta- 
 bility of conduct to the sort of profligacy 
 which defies public opinion, than that which 
 leads a man, whose previous motives were of 
 a purely secnlar kind, to make the attain- 
 ment of the kingdom of God his first object, 
 by which he necessarily rises in the moral 
 scale. That any one formerly on our own 
 level should take, or affect to take higher 
 ground, offends our self-love. It is a con- 
 stant rebuke, by reminding us of his supe- 
 riority of principle. Hence, it frequently hap- 
 pens that when a man really turns to God, 
 first he is represented as a hypocrite, then a 
 fool, and last of all, a madman. That his 
 motives and his judgment will be arraigned, 
 every neophyte may expect, as being matter 
 of uniform experience; and that madness is 
 a consequence of divine teaching, is a con- 
 clusion which is as old as the days of For- 
 tius Festus. 
 
68 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 4. Another use of this subject, and the last 
 which we shall mention, is for consolation. 
 
 And for this grateful ministry, its scope 
 is as wide as the office is benignant. As 
 may be well presumed, this doctrine of physi- 
 cal influences is easily capable of being per- 
 verted. Some may mistake the buoyancy 
 of animal spirits for the influences of the 
 Comforter, and others may ascribe the mo- 
 iions of sins which are by the law, to the 
 power of bodily disease. But it is not in- 
 tended by this admission of the efl'ect of 
 physical causes upon the soul, to ofl'er an 
 apology for sin, to furnish a convenient ex- 
 cuse for indolence, suUenness, a cynical tem- 
 per, or any other culpable dispositions to 
 which a man may be constitutionally prone. 
 All these may be natural, but very criminal 
 nevertheless. The difl'erence is wide be- 
 tween a neglect of prayer and watchfulness 
 occasioned by great fatigue in the perform- 
 ance of other duties, as in the case of the 
 disciples in the garden, and an omission 
 caused by giving way to an inbred laziness. 
 As a question in morals, the point is material 
 whether a man's hastiness of spirit be a 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 69 
 
 symptom of hepatic disease, or the habitual 
 prompting of a depraved and neglected heart. 
 We are not accountable to God for the dif- 
 ference in our complexion or in the length 
 of our limbs, but he justly makes us respon- 
 sible for the envy and jealousy and malice 
 of our dispositions. 
 
 To what extent, however, these morbid 
 exercises are moral and culpable, is perhaps 
 the most perplexing inquiry which this whole 
 subject suggests. That man is answerable 
 for his conduct so long as "exaggerated irri- 
 tability stops short of derangement," would 
 seem to be an axiom in morals; and yet 
 what shall we understand by derangement? 
 What is that changed condition of the man, 
 or how far must it go, in order to release 
 him for the time from the claims of the moral 
 law? It has been confidently asserted, that 
 the feelings produced by nervous diseases 
 are not strictly moral, nor are we accounta- 
 ble for them except as we are accountable 
 for inducing that state of physical organiza- 
 tion in which they originate. 
 
 And admitting this also to be true, those 
 cases will nevertheless continually occur 
 
70 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 which it will occasion no little perplexity to 
 decide. Moral qualities, such as pride, envy, 
 jealousy, covetousness, &c., we know are 
 hereditary, as well as those that are intel- 
 lectual : " Hence we often find," says Dr. 
 Rush, "certain virtues and vices as peculiar 
 to families through all their degrees of con- 
 sanguinity and duration, as is a peculiarity 
 of voice, complexion, or shape.'' But how- 
 ever this innate or transmitted tendency to 
 certain kinds of evil may excite commisera- 
 tion, we regard it not so much as an apology 
 for having yielded to the inclination, as a 
 cogent motive for continual vigilance against 
 it. But notwithstanding the difficulties with 
 which the subject is embarrassed, there is 
 nevertheless, much in this doctrine of physi- 
 cal influences for the comfort of those whose 
 wretched experience often makes it so de- 
 sirable. It is a relief to find that they were 
 in error concerning the nature of their dis- 
 tressing affection; to discover that what was 
 supposed to be an infusion of Satan, has 
 been caused, perhaps by a mistake in the 
 quality or quantity of their food, or by 
 changes in the atmosphere. They see the 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 71 
 
 danger of making their feelings the test of 
 their Christian character, so long as their 
 health is impaired. Indeed it is painful to 
 read the diaries of many eminent believers, 
 and see how they suffered from the imagi- 
 nary behef of the withdrawment of God's fa- 
 vour, manifested, as they supposed, by the 
 variable state of their feelings. The grand 
 difficulty in many of these cases, lies in a 
 deranged condition of the animal part. A 
 highly respectable clergyman, still living in 
 New England, after having preached with 
 much acceptance and success to a congrega- 
 tion for twenty years, was called to another 
 field of labour; the change proving not so 
 happy in all respects as he had anticipated, 
 his health failed, and with it his hope. On 
 entering the pulpit one Sabbath morning, he 
 sat for a while, then arose, and instead of 
 commencing as usual the exercises of the 
 day, he remarked to the people that he had 
 been deceived in relation to his personal re- 
 ligion, was not worthy of the office of a 
 preacher, and could not any longer discharge 
 it. A physician who was present called on 
 him afterwards, and was enabled to convince 
 
72 INFLUENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 him that the cause of his despondency was 
 physical. In the course of two weeks of 
 medical treatment it was removed, his chris- 
 tian hope revived, he resumed his labours as 
 a preacher, and has continued to perform 
 them ever since with comfort to himself and 
 usefulness to others. 
 
 So far therefore, as it may be shown to the 
 spiritually depressed that their gloominess is 
 a symptom of disease, they may be consoled 
 by the assurance, that such distress of their 
 soul is perfectly consistent with its regene- 
 rate state and its safety. Let them resort 
 then to such remedies as the exigencies of 
 the case demand, and wait for relief to be 
 afforded through the proper channel. 
 
 The same consideration, moreover, may 
 often minister substantial consolation in the 
 case of departed friends, whose exercises 
 have appeared more or less ambiguous, as 
 flesh and heart were failing under the power 
 of disease. 
 
 It is an important observation of Pearson, 
 in his life of Mr. Hay, of Leeds, that good 
 men may be unreasonably depressed, and 
 bad men elevated, under the near prospect 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 73 
 
 of death, from the mere operation of natural 
 causes. The Saviour's declaration makes it 
 fearfully certain that the judgment day will 
 reveal many disappointments of some re- 
 jected, who died in the confident hope of 
 salvation; of others received, who left this 
 world in darkness and despair. How diffi- 
 cult as well as delicate then, is the task of 
 those who undertake to compile the memoirs 
 of the pious from their diaries, or the records 
 of their secret experience! How great their 
 need of judgment, sound discretion, and espe- 
 cially of that knowledge of mental disorders 
 and morbid influences, which many of such 
 writers have evidently lacked ! Indeed we 
 are by no means convinced that there is not 
 virtually a breach of trust in exposing the 
 records of Christian experience, perhaps 
 meant to be secret, to the inspection of the 
 public. Such relations, moreover, while they 
 have not benefitted the pious, have been sub- 
 jects of merriment to the profane. 
 
 That the deeply interesting biography of 
 Payson would have been more valuable by 
 some omissions, will hardly be questioned 
 by those who regard the portions to which 
 
74 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 we refer, as indicative rather of the state of 
 his health than of the condition of his soul. 
 And so of the amiable poet of Olncy, who, 
 through the whole period of his gloomy 
 aberrations, kept a journal of his feelings, 
 which was published after his decease, in 
 spite of the earnest expostulations of his 
 more judicious friends. It was regarded by 
 them as a heartless violation of the secrets 
 of the sepulchre, as a throwing open of the 
 closet of the anatomist to the gaze of the 
 vulgar, and a yielding to the pryings of a 
 prurient curiosity, under a pretence of cor- 
 recting certain false notions of religion. 
 
 How few of us would be willing to sub- 
 mit it to the most discreet friend that might 
 survive us, to draw our religious character 
 from what we might write from day to day 
 of our religious exercises, under a full con- 
 viction at the time we penned it, of its truth! 
 We say then, in conclusion, that while this 
 doctrine is never to be used as an excuse 
 for wilful dehnquency in any, it may afford 
 effective consolation to the afflicted believer 
 when bowed down with infirmities of soul 
 which he cannot overcome. If rightly under- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 75 
 
 Stood it will tend not only to minister relief, 
 but will make us more watchful against sin 
 in all its forms, and especially against that 
 to which we have a constitutional bias. Are 
 we naturally passionate and excitable; are 
 we envious, proud, covetous, or jealous, it 
 will cause us to pray and watch against 
 these besetting sins with peculiar vigilance ; 
 while our numerous failures in this and 
 every other duty, will make us feel our 
 absolute dependence on the Spirit both for 
 grace to enjoy our religion, and strength to 
 obey its precepts. Above all, it will com- 
 mend to our hearts that great Redeemer 
 who hath borne our griefs and carried our 
 sorrows. We shall look away from our 
 desperate moral defilement, to that blood 
 which cleanseth from all sin; from our 
 weakness to his strength ; from our sins to his 
 perfect righteousness. It is but a little while, 
 and he that shall come ivill come and will 
 not tarry. The day of our emancipation is 
 fast approaching, when the earthly house of 
 this tabernacle will be exchanged for « 
 building of God, a house not made with 
 hands, eternal i?i the heavens. The spirit 
 
76 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 shall no more be iaipeded by the disorders 
 of the flesh, but this vile body shall be 
 fashioned like unto ChrisVs glorious body; 
 and then, as Cowper triumphantly sings, in 
 one of his intervals of christian hope, 
 
 When that happy era begins, 
 
 And arrayed in his beauties we shine, 
 
 Nor grieve any more by our sins. 
 The bosom on which we recline, 
 
 Then, then, never more shall the fears, 
 The trials, temptations and woes. 
 
 Which sadden this valley of tears. 
 Intrude on our blissful repose. 
 
 Then the stroke that from sin and from pain, 
 
 Shall set us eternally free. 
 Will but strengthen and rivet the chain 
 
 That binds us, dear Saviour, to thee. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 77 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 'Tie hard, in such a strife of ruJes, to chooae 
 The best. 
 
 Armstrong, 
 
 Having examined the nature of physical 
 causes, their influence upon rehgious expe- 
 rience, and the uses of knowledge, we come 
 now to the most important department of 
 our subject, viz: the counsels which such 
 cases of suffering require. 
 
 And here we would repeat the remark, 
 that as we are not writing for medical men, 
 neither do we affect the medical knowledge 
 which is required to do it justice in all its 
 bearings. The most which has been pro- 
 posed and attempted, is to offer the results 
 of some experience and observation in prose- 
 cuting the ministry, rather than the fruits of 
 scientific research. Without much of the 
 7 
 
78 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 latter, it has appeared to the writer, that 
 there is ample scope for some profitable sug- 
 gestions, by which the unhappy condition of 
 many may be reached and relieved. 
 
 The more conversant we become with the 
 varied cases of spiritual disquietude, occur- 
 rent in our churches, the more occasion we 
 see for all the aid which may be furnished 
 by the counsels and experience of others. 
 That this should have been made no more 
 frequently the subject of discussion by the 
 pen or the pulpit, is to be ascribed, not to its 
 intrinsic barrenness, nor its want of impor- 
 tance, as is evident from the prominency 
 given it in the older Enghsh writers, but 
 the demand for treatises on subjects like that 
 of our present discussion is small, and for 
 the most part restricted to those whose cases 
 are portrayed, and very often to a smaller 
 number even than they. Sometimes there 
 is such an utter prostration of all energy, in- 
 tellectual and moral, in the afflicted them- 
 selves, that it is extremely difficult to arrest 
 their attention even by instructions, which, 
 if heeded, would relieve their spirits and 
 restore them to cheerfulness. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPEBIENCE. 79 
 
 "In perusing the memoirs of those who 
 have devoted themselves to God," says Dr. 
 Cheyne, " nothing has appeared to us more 
 remarkable than their ignorance of, or inat- 
 tention to, many of those things which affect 
 their spiritual enjoyment; and especially that 
 physical causes should be so continually over- 
 looked by those who must be fully aware of 
 the influence which the body exercises over 
 the mind, and the mind over the body, in all 
 men, but particularly in Christians." They 
 are habitually desponding and unhappy; not 
 appearing to know how much the pleasura- 
 ble emotions of the soul are dependent on 
 the state of the health. 
 
 Non est vivere, sed valere, vita. 
 Existence is not life, but to be well. 
 
 To those, then, who are perplexed about 
 their spiritual state, and are often fearful and 
 sad, we would say, 
 
 1. Endeavour, so far as possible, to ascer- 
 tain the true cause of your doubts and spi- 
 ritual troubles. 
 
 This is Baxter's prescription. " If you 
 should mistake in the cause," says he, " it 
 
80 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 would much frustrate the most excellent 
 means for cure. The very same doubts and 
 complaints may come from several causes in 
 several persons, and therefore admit not of 
 the same way of cure. Sometimes the cause 
 begins in the body, and thence proceedeth to 
 the mind ; sometimes it begins in the mind, 
 and thence distempereth the body. Again, 
 it proceedeth from worldly crosses, or scruples 
 upon points of religious doctrine, decays of 
 inward grace, or, as it was with David, from 
 the deep wounds of some scandalous sin. 
 Which of these is your own case, you must 
 be careful to find out, and apply the means 
 for cure accordingly. And if, upon close and 
 careful examination, it prove like Achan's 
 fraud, to be some latent sin, then relief can 
 only come (as it infallibly will come,) by 
 putting it away. If the cause be found in 
 the state of your health, then acquit your 
 soul from all that part of your disquietness 
 which proceeds from this source; remember- 
 ing in all your self-examinations, self-judg- 
 ings, and reflections on your heart, that it is 
 not directly to be charged with those sorrows 
 that come from your spleen, save only re- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 81 
 
 motely, as all other diseases are the fruits of 
 sin, as a lethargic dullness is the deserved 
 fruit of sin ; but he that should charge it im- 
 mediately on his soul, would wrong himself, 
 and he that would attempt the cure, must do 
 it on the body." 
 
 It is admitted that such counsel as this is at- 
 tended with more or less danger ; that it may 
 encourage presumption in some, and thus 
 lead them to heal the hurt of their spirit too 
 slightly and hastily, by resolving it into a 
 cause over which they have no control, and 
 for which they are not accountable. It is 
 hoped, however, that the subject has been suf- 
 ficiently guarded against this perversion, by 
 what has been said in the preceding chapter. 
 Unhappily, however, as has also been inti- 
 mated before, many of those who need such 
 instructions, are too dejected and inert to be 
 aroused to make any serious and persevering 
 inquiry after the source of their despondency. 
 " To reason with a man against the views which 
 arise from melancholy,'' says Dr. Alexander, 
 ^'is commonly as inefficacious as reasoning 
 against bodily pain. I have long made this 
 a criterion, to ascertain whether the dejection 
 
82 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 experienced was owing to a physical cause ; 
 for in that case, argument, though demon- 
 strative, had no effect/' Very many are pre- 
 disposed to take it for granted that their 
 gloom proceeds from a culpable cause, what- 
 ever it may be ; that the more they should 
 investigate the painful subject, the more they 
 would discover to convince them that they 
 were deceiving themselves, and that they 
 had never been spiritually changed. But 
 let no professor of reUgion in his senses ever 
 be tempted to dispose of his own case in this 
 precipitate and summary way. To give in- 
 dulgence to such a lethargic ease, while in 
 doubt about his salvation, is evidence of a 
 sort of hallucination, which, instead of im- 
 pairing his responsibility, greatly increases 
 both his danger and his guilt. Let the in- 
 quiry into his own personal state, then, be 
 pursued diligently, until he come to a satis- 
 factory conclusion ; let him persevere under 
 a persuasion of the ineffable importance of 
 the duty, as involving all that is desirable or 
 fearful in the disclosures of eternity. 
 
 2. Our second counsel to those who are 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 83 
 
 thus afflicted, is to avail themselves of judi- 
 cious medical advice. 
 
 We refer in this direction more particularly 
 to those whose state of doubting and dark- 
 ness has been long continued. As in the 
 case of Dr. Rush, the cause may exist in a 
 morbid condition of the body, without being 
 even suspected by themselves. To those 
 whose trouble proceeds from this source, 
 says Baxter again, "expect not that rational 
 or spiritual remedies should suffice for your 
 cure, any more than that a good sermon or 
 comfortable words should cure the falling 
 sickness, or palsy, or a broken head; for your 
 melancholy fears are as really a bodily disease 
 as the other, only because these work on the 
 spirits and fantasy, on which words of advice 
 do also work to a certain extent; therefore 
 such words, and Scripture and reason may 
 somewhat resist it, and may palliate and 
 allay some of the effects at the present, but 
 as soon as time hath worn off the force and 
 effects of these reasons, the distemper pre- 
 sently returns." 
 
 As the cause therefore is in the animal 
 part, it must be reached, if at all, by reme- 
 
84 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 dies which it comes more within the province 
 of the medical than the spiritual counsellor 
 to prescribe. But let it not be forgotten that 
 not every physician, how skilful soever, and 
 learned, and successful in his general prac- 
 tice, is qualified to instruct the description of 
 patients whom these remarks contemplate. 
 Such, however, has been the change of late 
 years in the character of diseases, and espe- 
 cially so great has been the increase of those 
 by which the mind and spiritual affections 
 are disturbed, that cases of this sort are better 
 imderstood, and the number of competent 
 advisers among the faculty is much greater 
 than it was formerly. It is an interesting 
 fact, which is not generally known, that a 
 large proportion of our more serious ailments 
 fall within the category to which we now 
 refer. 
 
 Near the close of the seventeenth century, 
 Sydenham estimated fevers to constitute, at 
 that time, two-thirds of the diseases of man- 
 kind. About seventy years afterwards. Dr. 
 Cheyne made nervous disorders about one- 
 third of the complaints of the higher class in 
 England. At the beginning of the nineteenth 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. S5 
 
 century, Trotter supposed them to constitute 
 full two-thirds of all those which afflict civi- 
 hzed society. And a later writer still ex- 
 presses the opinion that even Trotter's esti- 
 mate falls below the truth. 
 
 We do not pretend to decide as to the 
 comparative accuracy of these computations. 
 It is enough to say, that the lowest is suffi- 
 ciently great to appal, and also to show, that 
 no department of the healing art claims more 
 earnestly the attention of physicians than this. 
 If the connexion between the mind and body 
 be so intimate as has been shown, the rea- 
 sonableness of this resort for medical advice 
 would be obvious, even if its practical value 
 had not been tested by common experience. 
 How often have we known a morbid condi- 
 tion of the mind or spirits to be as speedily 
 and as effectually removed by the operation 
 of a drug as a pain in the head. That pee- 
 vishness, impatience, and irritability which 
 make one intolerable to himself as well as to 
 others, we see daily relieved by the same 
 simple agency as by the power of magic; 
 and hence '-'our domestic happiness often 
 depends on the state of the biliary and di- 
 8 
 
86 INFLUENCE OE PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 gestive organs; and the little disturbances of 
 conjugal life, may sometimes be more effica- 
 ciously cured by the physician than by the 
 moralist; for a sermon or homily misapplied 
 will never act so directly as a sharp medi- 
 cine/^ 
 
 A physician in this city was recently in- 
 vited to visit a lady enjoying apparent health, 
 living in affluence, and surrounded with every 
 thing which wealth and elevated condition, 
 and affectionate friends could confer to ren- 
 der her happy; yet in the midst of it all, she 
 felt indescribably wretched, and sent for her 
 medical adviser to explain the cause. It was 
 a case of plethoric tendency, which called 
 for depletion. A moderate bleeding afforded 
 relief, and in a very few days she was re- 
 stored to her former cheerfulness. 
 
 Dryden, whose mind, notwithstanding its 
 capacity for elevated and brilliant concep- 
 tions was sometimes turbid and dull, well 
 knew the utility of medical expedients as 
 auxiliary to thought. "When I have a grand 
 design before me," says he, "I ever take 
 physic and let blood; for when you would 
 have pure swiftness of thought and fiery 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 87 
 
 flights of fancy, you must have a care of 
 the pensive part, and for this, get help from 
 the apothecary." Descartes, the philosopher, 
 went farther still, and asserted that if any 
 means can be found to render men wiser and 
 more ingenious than they have been hitherto, 
 such a method must be sought from the assist- 
 ance of medicine: and Plutarch, speaking of 
 the reaction of the mind upon the body as 
 the cause of those injuries which it requires 
 medicine to repair, very playfully observes, 
 that "should the body sue the mind before 
 a court of judicature for damages, it would 
 be found that the mind had proved to be a 
 ruinous tenant to its landlord." 
 
 None, we trust, will infer from what has 
 thus been said of medical assistance, that we 
 approve of that habitual tampering with 
 drugs which is so common with the nervous 
 valetudinarian, by which he only makes his 
 malady the worse. 
 
 Exuperat magis, sBgrescitque medendo. 
 The disease is aggravated by the means used to cure it. 
 
 But it is to discourage all this private em- 
 piricism, by directing the sufferer away from 
 
SS INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 these experiments upon himself, to the well 
 taught physician, that more competent coun- 
 sellor, who has been designated by Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 3. Another important auxiliary to the 
 desponding Christian, is suitable society — 
 habitual intercourse with others, and espe- 
 cially the devout, who possess a happier 
 temperament. 
 
 Whatever cheerful and serene 
 
 Supports the mind, supports the body too. 
 
 The influence of sympathy, its operation 
 for both evil and good, is famiUarly known. 
 "We are all," says Locke, "a kind of cha- 
 meleon, who take a moral tinge from the 
 objects which surround us." The manifesta- 
 tion of fear or of confidence and self-posses- 
 sion in a time of danger, inspires a corres- 
 ponding emotion in those who behold it. 
 The story of Caesar and the affrighted mari- 
 ners, will occur as a striking illustration ; and 
 how we all assimilate in character as well as 
 in manners to those with whom we associ- 
 ate, is a fact of daily observation. Hence 
 the salutary effect of a cheerful, sanguine 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 89 
 
 Christian, upon those who are prone to mel- 
 ancholy. *ds iron sharpeneth iron, so a 
 man sharpeneth the countenance of his 
 friend. His society is exhilarating, like the 
 wine prescribed by Solomon to those that be 
 of heavy hearts. An interview with those 
 of their own morbid tendencies may be 
 advantageous sometimes, by correcting the 
 usual mistake of such believers, that their 
 case is peculiar, or has certain unfavourable 
 characteristics, by which it is placed without 
 the reach of the ordinary means of relief. A 
 comparison of exercises and sentiments, is 
 often productive of good in showing that 
 their condition is not so singular as they had 
 imagined. From the prevailing lack of sym- 
 pathy with which such sufferers meet, many 
 prefer to hide their sorrows in their own 
 bosom, to the risk of opening their heart to 
 those who could poorly appreciate an expe- 
 rience so foreign to their own. Thus the late 
 Captain Benjamin Wickes, of Philadelphia, 
 concealed his long and oppressive melancholy 
 for nearly twenty years, until it was dis- 
 covered by that devoted servant of Christ, 
 INIr. Joseph Eastburn, whose affectionate 
 
90 INFLUENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 conversation and judicious counsels, were 
 the means of affording immediate relief. 
 
 How far the distressing symptoms of Cow- 
 per's malady were mitigated by the delight- 
 ful society of the Unwins, is easily inferred 
 from his memoirs ; nor are any of us so im- 
 perturbable in our spiritual temperament, as 
 not to be more or less lifted up or depressed 
 by the joy or sadness of those Christian 
 friends with whom we mingle. And hence 
 one of four cardinal rules which the eminent 
 casuist already quoted, has given to melan- 
 choly Christians, is to "keep company with 
 the more cheerful sort of the godly; converse 
 with men of the strongest faith, that have 
 much of the heavenly mirth of believers, 
 which faith doth fetch from the blood of 
 Christ and from the promises of his word, 
 and who can speak experimentally of the joy 
 of the Holy Ghost, and these will be a great 
 help to the reviving of your spirit and chang- 
 ing your melancholy habit, so far as without 
 a physician it may be expected." On the 
 other hand, decline, so far as practicable, the 
 society of the gloomy and disconsolate. Their 
 sorrowful spirit, like an evil distemper, is 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 91 
 
 contagious, and your influence upon eacli 
 other will be reciprocally prejudicial. 
 
 Oderunt hilarem tristes, tristemque jocosi. 
 
 The grave dislike the cheerful, and the merry hate the 
 grave. 
 
 Some physiologists contend that laughter, 
 as one of the greatest aids to digestion, is 
 highly conducive to health, and therefore 
 Hufeland, physician to the king of Prussia, 
 commends the wisdom of the ancients, who 
 maintained a jester that was always present 
 at their meals, "whose quips and cranks 
 would keep the table in a roar." 
 
 Solomon's opinion of the beneficial effect 
 of cheerfulness is easily inferred, not only 
 from the manner in which he commends it, 
 but the frequency. "A merry heart," says 
 he, "doeth good like a medicine, but a 
 broken spirit drieth the bones." Or, as it is 
 better rendered perhaps, in the old transla- 
 tion, "A joyful heart causeth good health; 
 but a sorrowful mind drieth the bones." 
 
 4. A fourth counsel, of incalculable value 
 to those who would enjoy spiritual comfort, 
 is to he temperate. 
 
92 INFLTJENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 We refer not merely to the total disuse 
 of alcoholic drinks and intoxicating drugs, 
 which will be presumed, of course, but to 
 that habitual control over every appetite 
 which will keep us within the limits that 
 are prescribed by both reason and health. 
 
 Learn temperance, friends ; and hear without disdain 
 The choice of water. Thus the Coan sage* 
 Opin'd, and thus the learned of every school. 
 
 It does not properly fall within the scope 
 of the writer to furnish such details, as 
 would be expected in a dietetical treatise, 
 and which would come with more authority 
 from an experienced physician. Burton, in 
 his most extraordinary work called the Anat- 
 omy of Melancholy, has given a curious dis- 
 quisition on the intrinsic qualities of different 
 kinds of food, and of their comparative ten- 
 dency to nurture certain pleasant or painful 
 affections of the mind, as well as animal pro- 
 pensities; but like many of the opinions of 
 this eccentric writer, it is to be received with 
 some material abatements. Dr. Rush, how- 
 ever, asserts that the effects of diet upon the 
 moral faculty are more certain, though less 
 
 * Hippocrates. 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 93 
 
 attended to, than the effects of cUmate ; that 
 the quaUty, as well as the quantity of the 
 aliment, has its influence ; and that pride, 
 cruelty, and sensuality, are as much the natu- 
 ral consequences of luxurious living, as are 
 apoplexies and palsies. Fulness of bread, 
 we are told, was one of the predisposing 
 causes of the vices of the cities of the plain. 
 He concurs too, with Dr. Paris and other 
 eminent medical writers, both foreign and 
 domestic, in reprobating the too free use of 
 animal food by persons of sedentary habits, 
 which not only predisposes to inflammatory 
 diseases, but has a sensible influence on the 
 morals. Dr. McNish, of Glasgow, quotes 
 with approbation another opinion of Hufe- 
 land, that ^' infants who are accustomed to 
 eat much animal food become robust, but at 
 the same time passionate, violent, and bru- 
 tal." Moreover, the efficacy of a vegetable 
 diet upon the passions, was verified in the 
 practice of Dr. Arbuthnot, who assures us 
 that he cured several patients of irascible 
 tempers, by nothing but the prescription of 
 a simple vegetable regimen. Some devout 
 persons, like Payson, have erred on the side 
 
94 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 of excessive abstinence ; which his biogra- 
 pher pronounces to have been the great mis- 
 take of his Ufe. To what extremes others 
 have been carried under the influence of 
 superstition, to mortify the body for the sins 
 of the soul, is familiar to all who are con- 
 versant with the history of Asceticism ; but 
 the more common and dangerous error by 
 far, is the opposite, or that of indulging the 
 appetite too freely. Thus Dr. Combe reas- 
 serts with special approbation, the published 
 opinion of a distinguished American physi- 
 cian, that intemperate eating is almost a uni- 
 versal fault ; that it is begun in the cradle, 
 and continued till we go down to the grave; 
 that it is far more common than intempe- 
 rance in drinking ; and the aggregate of mis- 
 chief that it does, is greater. 
 
 Plures crapula, quam gladius. 
 Gluttony kills more than the sword. 
 
 '•For every reehng drunkard that dis- 
 graces our country, it contains one hundred 
 persons who eat to excess and sufter by the 
 practice." Baglivi, a celebrated Roman phy- 
 sician, mentions that in Italy an unusually 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 95 
 
 large proportion of the sick recovered during 
 Lent, in consequence of the lower diet which 
 is then observed as part of the religious 
 duties of the season. 
 
 Let the whole subject of dietetic economy 
 then, be carefully regarded by those who are 
 subject to spiritual and nervous depression ; 
 and while the conflicting opinions of the 
 faculty on the subject of diet or regimen, 
 will abundantly show how "doctors disa- 
 gree ;" yet they are, nevertheless, replete with 
 suggestions of the highest practical value. 
 It need hardly be remarked, that indepen- 
 dent of the influence on the animal spirits 
 and health, yet as prescribed by Christian 
 morality, the appetites should be kept under 
 habitual control. The spiritual man should 
 learn, with the apostle Paul, to keep his body 
 under. He should live in that elevated state 
 of communion with God, that he will not 
 be tempted to descend from the higher and 
 purer enjoyments of his religion, to seek 
 happiness in the gratifications of the epicu- 
 rean and sensualist. But how far it is lawful 
 to indulge a healthful appetite at his table 
 from day to day, is a question of morals 
 
96 INFLUENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 which cannot be settled for a christian by 
 any of the rules of medical science or physi- 
 ology. Put a knife to thy throaty says 
 Solomon, z/ Mow be a man given to appe- 
 tite. Restrain thyself as if excess or reple- 
 tion were death. But what may be re- 
 ceived as at once the fruit of experience and 
 the dictate of science, has been expressed in 
 the measures of a writer not less gifted with 
 poetic genius than with medical knowledge; 
 
 beyond the sense 
 
 Of light refection, at the genial board 
 Indulge not often, nor protract the feast 
 To dull satiety. 
 
 Dr. Holland's three rules are: 1. "Not to 
 eat so much nor so long, as to cause a sense 
 of uneasy repletion. 2. The rate of eating 
 always to be so slow as to allow thorough 
 mastication. 3. Use no urgent exercise, 
 either of body or mind, immediately after a 
 full meal. Rules," he remarks, "whose sim- 
 plicity and familiarity may lessen their seem- 
 ing value, yet in practice they will be found 
 to include, directly or indirectly, a great pro- 
 portion of the cases that come before the 
 faculty for treatment.'' To these, however, 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 97 
 
 he virtually adds a fourth, in a subsequent 
 paragraph, in which he earnestly dehorts 
 from the pernicious habit of directing the 
 attention after eating to the region of the 
 stomach, as tending greatly to disturb the 
 process of digestion. 
 
 It is said, in the Life of President Edwards, 
 that although of an infirm constitution and 
 indifferent health, yet he was able to spend 
 thirteen hours daily in his study. This sur- 
 prising power of endurance is explained in 
 the succeeding paragraph, in which we read 
 that he carefully observed the effects of dif- 
 ferent sorts of food, and selected those which 
 best fitted him for mental labour. Having 
 also ascertained the quantity of food which, 
 while it sustained his bodily strength left his 
 mind most sprightly and active, he scrupu- 
 lously confined himself within the prescribed 
 limits. But not to dwell in details that are 
 so accessible in elaborate treatises on this 
 very subject, and that are deservedly held in 
 the highest repute, we will only add, that the 
 substance of what we have designed to say 
 in the preceding remarks, is comprehended 
 
98 INFLUENCE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 in an old Latin distich, by whom composed 
 we do not recollect ; 
 
 Si tibi deficiant medici, medici tibi fiant 
 
 HoBC tria: mens hilaris, requics, moderata dioeta, 
 
 which one has paraphrased in the following 
 clumsy couplet: 
 
 Employ three physicians ; first Doctor Diet, 
 Then Doctor Merryman, with Doctor Quiet. 
 
 5. Another counsel to be heeded with spe- 
 cial care by the desponding, is to be habi- 
 tually occupied. 
 
 We refer not to bodily exercise merely, 
 which is so essential to vigorous health, and 
 to a lively flow of the animal spirits, but we 
 speak of occupation for the mind, in con- 
 nexion with some useful employment, to 
 save it from those morbid actings by which 
 it is made the prey to its own energies. Who- 
 ever has noticed the amazing power of the 
 thoughts in disturbing the functions of the 
 body, will accord with the poet, that 
 
 'Tis the great art of life to manage well 
 The restless mind. 
 
 This is none the less true in relation to 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 99 
 
 religious men than to others. "There are 
 many," says Cecil, "who sit at home, nurs- 
 ing themselves over a fire, and then trace up 
 the natural effects of solitude, and want of 
 air and exercise, into spiritual desertion. But 
 this is to confound nature and grace, and to 
 make a sort of mystery of that which is 
 readily connected with a natural cause." 
 Now and then we find one who appears to 
 be happy in a sort of quietism, or cloistered 
 piety, which rather shuns than seeks commu- 
 nion with what is without. How it will be 
 in the world to come, we do not pretend to 
 say; but it has never been found in this, that 
 they are the happiest in religion who with- 
 draw from all active occupation, and spend 
 their whole time in devout contemplations. 
 No man, it has been said, is ever more reli- 
 gious for having his mind constantly occu- 
 pied with religion. This may seem a para- 
 dox, but those who know how little necessary 
 connexion there is between theological stu- 
 dies and spirituality of mind, and how much 
 a professional familiarity with such subjects 
 tends to deteriorate their influence, will 
 readily subscribe to the truth of the asser- 
 
100 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 tion. Although the truly pious man can 
 have but one dominant motive, the glory 
 of God, yet the active powers of the mind 
 will find useful and pleasant exercise in a 
 thousand different ways of promoting it. 
 To be engaged in doing good then, is alike 
 needful to the happiness of the spiritual man 
 and to his health. 
 
 Under a former head, we quoted one of 
 four rules for the relief of melancholy Chris- 
 tians, and here we add another from the 
 same author, viz; "to avoid idleness and 
 want of employment; which, as it is a life 
 not pleasing to God, so it is the opportunity 
 for melancholy thoughts to be working, and 
 the chiefest season for Satan to tempt us." 
 It has often been observed in relation to 
 clergymen who have been laborious and use- 
 ful, that they ill endure a change to leisure 
 from the occupation of a pastoral charge ; 
 but that in their sine titulo condition, they 
 are apt to become either nervous and low- 
 spirited, or turn to doing harm. 
 
 We were struck with a remark of Dr. 
 Green, many years ago, on his retirement 
 from Princeton, "that he did not know whe- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 101 
 
 ther hereafter he should do much good; but 
 he was resolved, if possible, to avoid doing 
 mischief, which was more than was apt to 
 be true of many of his brethren in similar 
 circumstances." 
 
 To brood over our spiritual maladies, 
 watching from day to day our changing 
 frames, will no more help to attain a better 
 spiritual condition, than the fingering of his 
 pulse, or examining the tongue by the victim 
 of dyspepsia will conduce to his more health- 
 ful digestion. In either case, the less he 
 thinks of himself the better; and the only 
 effectual expedient for diverting his thoughts 
 will be found in some pleasant and useful 
 occupation. Such was the relief which Cow- 
 per derived from his labour in translating 
 Homer; and to find an antidote to his dis- 
 tressing melancholy was supposed to be Dr. 
 Johnson's main inducement for proposing, 
 towards the close of his life, to publish a 
 translation of Thuanus. 
 
 "Were I asked," says a well known wri- 
 ter, "upon what circumstance the preven- 
 tion of low spirits chiefly depended, I should 
 borrow the ancient orator's mode of en- 
 9 
 
102 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 forcing the leading principle of his art^ and 
 reply — employment, employment, emjoloy- 
 ment. This is the grand panacea for the 
 tsedium vitae, and all the train of fancied 
 evils which prove so much more insupport- 
 able than real ones. It is a medicine that may- 
 be presented in a thousand forms, all equally- 
 efficacious.'^ 
 
 We remember the case of a fellow student 
 in our theological course whose mind was 
 so disquieted with fears about his spiritual 
 condition, that it became a serious question 
 whether he should not renounce the hope of 
 entering the ministry; but upon a statement 
 of his case to one of his teachers, he was ad- 
 vised to discontinue his examinations of him- 
 self for a season, take it for granted, if he 
 pleased, that his state was as bad as he feared, 
 but to turn his attention to the case of others, 
 pray more for them, and resolve to do all in 
 his power for their salvation. This counsel 
 was received, and was followed with the 
 happiest results. His mind was gradually 
 relieved, his spirits became buoyant and 
 cheerful, and after finishing his studies, he 
 entered the sacred profession with a joyful 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 103 
 
 hope of his calling and salvation, which con- 
 tinued to the end of his life. We would say, 
 then, to every troubled believer, copy his ex- 
 ample. Let not an elevated condition in life, 
 and wealth, if you have them, tempt you to 
 be idle. If not required to toil for your daily 
 bread, yet let a regard for your happiness 
 and health, and the monitions of conscience, 
 make you as industrious as if you were. 
 Consider your affluence and leisure as talents, 
 by means of which you have the enviable 
 opportunity of promoting the welfare of 
 others, gratuitously, in a thousand modes, 
 which are forbidden to others. Go join your- 
 self to the most active benefactors of society; 
 enter their ranks, or plant yourself in the 
 van. Take your full share in the labours of 
 the Sunday school or Bible class teacher, the 
 distribution of tracts, the visiting of the poor 
 and sick, and afflicted. Deny yourself many 
 gratifications of ease, and pleasure, and ad- 
 vantage for the sake of redeeming the time 
 and the means of doing more good. Aim 
 directly, like Harlan Page, at the single ob- 
 ject of saving men's souls; and whether your 
 success shall correspond to your wishes or 
 
104 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 not, you shall enjoy the reflex advantage of 
 your benevolence. In watering others, you 
 shall be watered yourself. 
 
 We are aware of the difficulty, of comply- 
 ing with this counsel, in many cases, and 
 none are more peculiarly trying than those 
 of clergymen, who, from declining health, 
 advancing age, or some untoward events, 
 have been dislodged from posts of active use- 
 fulness, and have now nothing to do which 
 is suited to their character, capacity, and cir- 
 cumstances. Such, it is well known, is often 
 the unhappy condition of some of the most 
 useful, as well as respectable and venerable 
 ministers of the church; and it is one of the 
 ominous signs of the times, that their num- 
 ber seems to be increasing. From the emolu- 
 ments of their calling, few derive more than 
 the means for a very frugal maintenance of 
 their family, and therefore, when by reason 
 of age and multiplied infirmities, the grass- 
 hopper has become a burden^ they find su- 
 peradded to all their afiiictions the trials of 
 poverty. We will not enlarge ; but for our- 
 selves, we are constrained to say, that we 
 feel it to be a material defect in our eccle- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 105 
 
 siastical economy, that their condition and 
 claims are not more particularly and tenderly 
 regarded; that in view of the resources and 
 benevolence of the church, something has not 
 been projected at least, if not carried into 
 effect, by which such an important casus 
 omissus should have been provided for, 
 some feasible plan by which their remaining 
 strength, their stores of learning and expe- 
 rience, may be turned to a profitable ac- 
 count, and these Mnasons of the ministry 
 made happy and useful during the remnant 
 of their pilgrimage. 
 
 Lastly: Let the depressed and desponding 
 look habitually to Christ. 
 
 A counsel, the most important, as it is the 
 most comprehensive of all that have been 
 offered. Look to Him continually for his 
 ascension gift, the Comforter, to purify from 
 sin, to help in overcoming the world, the 
 flesh, and the devil. Without me ye can 
 do nothing, says the Saviour; and through 
 Christ strengthening me, says his great 
 apostle, / can do all things. And while 
 you pray habitually for yourself, seek an in- 
 terest in the prayers of others. It is believed 
 
106 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 that the restoration of Ihe Rev. Mr. Rogers, 
 already referred to in a former chapter, was 
 ill answer to the special prayers of his pious 
 friends and brethren in the ministry, many of 
 whom were most earnest and importunate in 
 their intercessions, till at length his mind was 
 completely relieved. He has left a monu- 
 ment of his deliverance from his awful thral- 
 dom, in a book well worthy of the perusal of 
 those who suffer under spiritual distress, from 
 physical, or any other causes. But the pre- 
 vailing temptation of Christians of this tem- 
 perament is to look to themselves, to watch 
 their own fluctuating frames, canvass their 
 motives and conduct, as if they expected to 
 find the living among the dead. As if the 
 Israelite in the wilderness, bitten of the fiery 
 serpent, had depended, for his recovery upon 
 his former temperance, or the strength of his 
 constitution, and not upon looking to the 
 brazen image. Such reviews of the past and 
 searchings of heart, are not only proper, but 
 they are exceedingly important in many re- 
 spects, but not for spiritual comfort, in dis- 
 tress, nor for aid to arrive at assurance. 
 To look back, as one observes, is more than 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 107 
 
 we can sustain without going back. Indeed 
 the better the Christian, the more spiritually 
 minded and holy, the more does he usually 
 discover to cause sorrow, and the keenest 
 self-reproach, whenever he takes a retros- 
 pect of his past life and experience. For 
 many years, we are told, that even Baxter 
 was in great perplexity about himself, for 
 reasons which have been a common occasion 
 of doubting among serious inquirers in every 
 age of the church: It was because he could 
 not trace so distinctly the workings of the Spirit 
 on his heart, as they were described in some 
 practical writers to whom he was directed for 
 instruction, and he could not ascertain the 
 time of his conversion. Because he felt great 
 hardness of heart ; supposed himself to be 
 religious from early education rather than 
 conviction of the Spirit; to be influenced 
 more by fear than by love; and because his 
 grief and humiliation on account of sin were 
 not greater. But he was afterwards satisfied 
 that these were not suflicient nor scriptural 
 grounds for doubting his personal interest in 
 the salvation of Christ. Upon which Orme, 
 his accomplished biographer, remarks, that 
 
108 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 persons who are agitated with perplexities 
 similar to those of Baxter, are frequently 
 directed to means little calculated to afford 
 relief. It is very questionable whether any 
 individual will ever obtain comfort by making 
 himself, or the evidences of personal religion, 
 the object of chief attention. All hope to the 
 guilty creature is exterior to himself. In the 
 human character, even under Christian influ- 
 ence, sufficient reason for condemnation, and 
 therefore for fear, will always be found. It 
 is not thinking of the disease, nor of the mode 
 in which the remedy operates, nor of the de- 
 scription given of these things by others, but 
 using the remedy itself that will effect the 
 cure. The gospel is the heavenly appointed 
 balsam for all the wounds of sin, and Jesus 
 is the great Physician; it is to him, and to 
 his testimony, therefore, as the revelation of 
 pardon and healing, that the soul must be 
 directed in all the stages of its spiritual ca- 
 reer. When the glory of his character and 
 work is seen, darkness of mind will be dis- 
 sipated, the power of sin will be broken, 
 genuine contrition will be felt, and joy and 
 hope will fill the mind. It is from the Sa- 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 109 
 
 viour and his sacrifice that all proper excite- 
 ment ill religion must proceed ; and the at- 
 tempt to produce that excitement by the 
 workings of the mind on itself, must inevita- 
 bly fail. Self-examination to discover the 
 power of truth and the progress of principle 
 in us, is highly important; but when em- 
 ployed with a view to obtain comfort under 
 a sense of guilt, it never can succeed. No- 
 thing but renewed application to the cross 
 can produce the latter effect. 
 
 These sentiments are so important that 
 they cannot be repeated too often, nor be too 
 deeply impressed upon all, and especially 
 upon every inquirer after an assurance of 
 hope. They describe the only way by which 
 the perplexed believer, even when released 
 from the embarrassment of physical influ- 
 ences, can obtain a solid and permanent 
 peace. It is by looking to Christ, not as holy 
 in ourselves, but in order to be made holy ; not 
 as the "whole," whose distempers have been 
 cured already, but as the "sick" who must be 
 cured by him alone or perish. We must go 
 to him, feeling that we owe him ten thousand 
 times more than we can pay ; but that all he 
 10 
 
110 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES 
 
 requires of us is to accept a discharge, and 
 be happy in the enjoyment of this unmerited 
 grace. In other words, we are only to exalt 
 our glorious Redeemer to his true position as 
 both the author and finisher of our faith, 
 the alpha and omega in our salvation, and 
 our peace is secured. Those very views of 
 ourselves, our self-reproach and feeling of ill 
 desert, which have caused so much disquiet, 
 then become the evidences of that spiritual 
 change which is the beginning of everlasting 
 life. We repeat, then, the monition, in the 
 midst of distracting cares and temptations, 
 which so much hinder the exercise of this 
 faith, let us not forget the promised help of 
 the Holy Spirit. Let us watch against the 
 common sin of the desponding, who under- 
 value his aid, and practically question its 
 reality, when we are taught, not only that 
 he helpeth our infirmities^ but that he mak- 
 eth intercession for us with groanings which 
 cannot be uttered. 
 
 To know that we are Christians does not 
 imply that we are free from sin, but that we 
 are united to Christ. Our peace, and joy, 
 and hope, the fruits of this union, need not 
 
ON RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. Ill 
 
 be destroyed by our imperfections, however 
 great, while we chug to Him as our right- 
 eousness. "If we see ourselves bad enough 
 for Christ," says Thomas Adam, "he sees us 
 good enough." His people are safe, not- 
 withstanding their doubts and fears, not be- 
 cause of any inherent power in them to hold 
 on to the end, but because of the grace which 
 reigns in their calUng and redemption, in view 
 of which he has said, he will never leave 
 them nor forsake them. 
 
 The soul on his bosom that leans for repose, 
 Is safe from the assaults of its bitterest foes: 
 Tliat soul, tho' all hell should its vengeance awake, 
 He'll never, no never, no never forsake. 
 
 It is certainly among the deep mysteries of 
 Providence, that some of the most eminent 
 saints who have ever lived, should have been 
 afflicted with despondency and gloom; and 
 yet, as pious Rutherford remarks, "as nights 
 and shadows are good for flowers, and moon- 
 light and dews better than a continued sun, so 
 is Christ's absence of special use, and it hath 
 some nourishing virtue in it, and givelh sap 
 to humility, and furnisheth a fair field for 
 faith." 
 
112 INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES, ETC. 
 
 It has also been suggested, by way of ex- 
 planation, that these sufferings are designed 
 to enhance the joys of heaven by contrast; 
 that these hght afflictions which are but for 
 a moment, will tend to work for us a far 
 inore exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 
 " Two sorts of people," said Dr. Watts, 
 "will be disappointed when they get to 
 heaven : the melancholy Christian to find 
 himself there, and the censorious Christian 
 to find others there." But what can be 
 deep or mysterious in Providence, or hard 
 for us to believe, when we have once re- 
 ceived that amazing doctrine of grace, the 
 great central truth of revelation, that God so 
 loved the world as to give his only begotten 
 Son, that ivhosoever believeth in Him should 
 not perish, but have eternal life? 
 
113 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 The cases, by which the subject of this little 
 volume is exemplified, are so numerous and 
 accessible, that it would be easy to adduce 
 them to almost any extent. It is thought that 
 the purposes of the book would be promoted 
 by an appendix, containing the selection of 
 a few. 
 
 In reading the experience of others, when 
 sketched by a skilful hand, the afflicted often 
 find instruction made more attractive and in- 
 telligible, than in treatises, however elabo- 
 rate, that are, in their form, more abstract 
 and didactic. 
 
 The following is from a well written essay 
 on Religious Melancholy, by the Rev. M. B. 
 Hope, M. D., whose knowledge of medicine 
 and physiology, superadded to his theological 
 acquisitions, and deep Christian experience, 
 affords pecuUar quahfications for speaking 
 
114 APPENDIX. 
 
 with authority on such topics as we have 
 discussed. It is given for the purpose of 
 exhibiting a sample of cases of great diffi- 
 culty as well as interest, where there is a 
 manifest disorder of the religious views and 
 affections, and often great mental distress, 
 while yet, they are not commonly regarded 
 as cases of disease at all. It is the instance 
 of a young lady, who had been long and 
 intimately known to the writer, who was 
 "of a temperament highly nervous and san- 
 guine, and embarked very young, with all 
 her ardour, in the gay pleasures of fashion- 
 able life. A single season convinced her 
 fully of their emptiness and folly. She was 
 soon after brought under the influence of 
 pungent preaching, and convinced of sin. 
 The struggle was sharp and long; but the 
 result was, that she gave herself, with all her 
 heart, to a course of rigid religious duties. 
 Above all, she seemed to live in an atmos- 
 phere of prayer. Her faith in the truth and 
 promises of God, was without the shadow of 
 a cloud. And yet she had not the pure en- 
 joyment which she supposed to be the neces- 
 sary fruit of real piety. She did not, therefore, 
 
APPENDIX. 115 
 
 look upon herself, as a child of God; and her 
 consequent anxiety wore upon her spirit, and 
 secretly undermined her health. At length, 
 one day, as she rose from prayer, the thought 
 struck her like a thunder-bolt, * what if there 
 is no God after all.' She repelled the thought 
 with horror, and went her way. But the 
 shock had struck from her hand, ^ the shield 
 of faith,' and all her efforts were unable to 
 grasp it again. From henceforth she found 
 herself exposed to a constant shower of darts, 
 fiery and poisoned, and she could not resist 
 them. They stuck fast in her vitals, and drank 
 up her spirits. The poison thus injected 
 into the heart of her religious experience 
 soon spread, and blighted the whole. She 
 never knew a moment's peace, when her 
 thoughts were upon her once favourite, and 
 still engrossing subject. She called herself 
 an infidel, and applied to herself the dreadful 
 threatenings and doom of the unbeliever. 
 And yet it was evident she was not, in any 
 sense, an unbeliever. She was one of the 
 most devout and consistent persons we ever 
 knew. She was conscientious even to scru- 
 pulosity. She was a most devoted and faith- 
 
116 APPENDIX. 
 
 fill Sunday school teacher, and God blessed 
 her labours to the conversion of nearly all 
 her scholars. She rejoiced to hear of persons 
 becoming Christians, and would often say, 
 with despair in her tones, how she envied 
 them. When any of her acquaintances died 
 without giving good evidence of piety she 
 became excited, and as she expressed it, was 
 ready to scream aloud. She gave every 
 possible evidence that she had not, in reality, 
 a shadow of a doubt about the truth of reve- 
 lation. And yet no one ever dreamed that 
 her difficulties were connected with disease 
 of any sort; for her mind was remarkably 
 clear, and active. The advice of pious 
 friends and ministers, therefore, based upon 
 the supposition that her case was one of 
 spiritual darkness, or satanic temptation, was 
 to persevere in prayer — to struggle on more 
 earnestly, and God would give her light after 
 he had tried her faith and patience and love. 
 But the more she prayed and struggled, the 
 worse she grew. She would come from her 
 closet, exhausted with the fearful conflict, 
 and looking ready to sink into utter despair. 
 The Sabbath was always the worst day of 
 
APPENDIX. 117 
 
 the week; and the labour and exhaustion of 
 teaching aggravated her symptoms. 
 
 *' The only treatment which was success- 
 ful, in this case, would by many have been 
 rejected with horror. She was advised to 
 give up the struggle which she had main- 
 tained so unequally, and which would only 
 have resulted in disastrous consequences — to 
 think as little as possible on the subject — to 
 spend less time in devotional exercises, and 
 allow her mind to gather its scattered strength 
 by relaxation. The form of prayer advised 
 was short and audible, and such as took for 
 granted what she had been struggling to con- 
 vince herself of. Incessant pains were taken 
 to present the character of God in a simple, 
 affectionate, parental light, when any thing 
 led to the subject. The simplicity of faith, 
 and the certainty of salvation, were occa- 
 sionally flashed across her mind, when it was 
 in a suitable frame. The only two evidences 
 of piety which her state of mind rendered 
 available, were kept prominent as the basis 
 of new feelings and hopes, viz: her love to 
 the people of God, and the pain she felt in 
 the absence of divine favour, and the longing 
 
118 APPENDIX. 
 
 for its return. These were untouched by the 
 dismal monster that had preyed upon her 
 hopes. 
 
 " By a judicious perseverance in a course 
 like this, accompanied with well directed hy- 
 gienic measures, suitable recreation, exercise, 
 and diet, for improving her general health, 
 and especially the tone of her nervous system, 
 the mental energies began to react, and new 
 views of truth and new hopes sprung up in 
 her mind.'^ 
 
 Another case, furnished by the same, and 
 adduced for the sake of showing the efficacy 
 of judicious medical treatment, is that of "a 
 lady, whose state of mind had baffled every 
 attempt made by her judicious husband, to 
 bring her relief. She was a woman of great 
 refinement and strength of mind, eminently 
 pious, and devoted to her interesting young 
 family, whose education she conducted her- 
 self. While conferring every accomplish- 
 ment upon her children, she was mainly 
 anxious for their spiritual welfare. When 
 we saw her, she was intensely excited, and 
 had slept little for several nights. She said 
 
APPENDIX. 119 
 
 she had lost all interest in the instruction of 
 her children, and had become utterly regard- 
 less of their personal appearance and her 
 own. Her whole thoughts and feelings were 
 engrossed about their salvation, her anxiety 
 for which had become insupportably ago- 
 nizing. When instructing, or dressing, or 
 leading them out for their accustomed exer- 
 cise, she was incessantly distracted with the 
 thought, what good will all this do, while 
 they are still impenitent! Though her 
 flushed face and flashing restless eye, indi- 
 cated strong physical excitement, yet her 
 mind was so clear on every subject, and all 
 her views so rational, that we attributed the 
 whole difficulty to excessive and protracted 
 anxiety, for an object of peculiar interest to 
 a pious mother — the salvation of her children. 
 We made repeated attempts to reason with 
 heron the error and evils of her present state 
 of mind. She admitted fully the justice of 
 our reasoning, and concurred in the truth of 
 all our positions, but we found that this was 
 of no avail. Her excitement continued, and 
 with it her distress, and all her difficulties. 
 It appeared like a case of pure religious ex- 
 
120 APPENDIX. 
 
 citement, and was so looked upon by all her 
 family. They did not deem her deranged, 
 but it was evident she soon would be, unless 
 relieved. Finding reasoning of no avail, and 
 the excitement still increasing, we became 
 convinced on minute examination, that the 
 whole difficulty originated, not in religious 
 views or feelings at all, but in a morbid in- 
 crease of arterial action, arising from some 
 physical cause. One-twelfth of a grain of 
 tartar emetic, five or six times a day, gave 
 perfect relief, and restored both her views 
 and feelings to the healthy standard." 
 
 Another case, for which we are indebted 
 to a correspondent, will show the effect of 
 disease in misguiding the conscience. It is 
 that of a young man of fervent piety, who is 
 at this time preparing for the ministry; but 
 in such a state, as to be wholly unable to 
 pursue his studies. For several years he has 
 felt himself urged and almost coerced, as he 
 says, to make various vows to God, pro- 
 mising to spend so many hours a day in de- 
 votional exercises, and to keep days of fasting 
 and prayer on various accounts. These 
 
APPENDIX. 121 
 
 VOWS have become so burdensome, as to in- 
 terfere with his duty as well as with his 
 peace. He has forgotten some of the reasons 
 for these vows, and now he feels himself 
 solemnly bound by his vow, but knows not 
 what to do to fulfil it ; and some of the occa- 
 sions on which days of fasting were vowed to 
 be kept, have passed, and his vow not fulfilled. 
 He is kept awake a great part of the night, 
 and is incapable of study. "I endeavoured," 
 says my informant, " to show him, in what 
 cases vows were not binding, and flattered 
 myself that I had relieved his mind, but in a 
 few days he came back, and I went over the 
 whole again ; but all to little purpose. And by 
 this it may be commonly known, that the 
 disease is physical, when the clearest reason- 
 ing and admitted conclusions produce no 
 effect." 
 
 "Some time since," says the same cor- 
 respondent, " I was consulted respecting the 
 case of a young man, who had vowed that 
 he would never taste butter — but as this en- 
 tered into so many kinds of food, he was 
 kept in continual perplexity. This, how- 
 
122 APPENDIX. 
 
 ever, seems to have been merely a device of 
 Satan." 
 
 "There is now a pious and useful pastor in 
 the interior of Pennsylvania, who, when pur- 
 suing his theological studies, resolved or 
 vowed, against so many kinds of food, be- 
 cause they were gratifying to his palate, that 
 he actually was suffering for want of nutri- 
 tive food." 
 
 The error of hastily ascribing religious 
 melancholy to the direct agency or influence 
 of religion, is exposed in the account given 
 of a patient in the Pennsylvania Hospital in 
 1842, by Dr. Kirkbride, physician to the in- 
 stitution. 
 
 "A young man of very moderate mental 
 capacity, little education, and accustomed to 
 a laborious occupation, from too much con- 
 finement at his business, finds his health fail- 
 ing, and gives up his employment for a few 
 months to recruit. At the end of that time, 
 although not well, he is able to return to 
 work, but then discovers that the changes in 
 the times make it impossible for him to find 
 
APPENDIX. 123 
 
 any thing to do. His means being exhausted, 
 his body weak, without his customary exer- 
 cise, his mind gradually becomes in a morbid 
 state, when some excitement from Miller's 
 prophecy occurring in his neighbourhood, he 
 immediately attempts to study the subject, 
 and to ascertain its truth from close reading 
 of the Bible — an investigation utterly un- 
 suited for his capacity under any circum- 
 stances — and the difficulties he encounters at 
 the very threshhold, lead to a violent attack 
 of mania. The disease was attributed to 
 ' Miner's prophecy,' or to 'religious excite- 
 ment,' but neither of these causes would give 
 a proper idea of the origin of the case. Be- 
 fore being excited on that subject, the pa- 
 tient's mind was ready to be overturned by 
 any abstruse or exciting matter that might 
 be presented to it. Without his loss of em- 
 ployment this would not have occurred, and 
 whhout the enfeebled health which accom- 
 panied it, his attempted investigation might 
 have been harmless." 
 
 In the fourth chapter of Dr. Alexander's 
 Thoughts on Rehgious Experience, will be 
 
124 APPENDIX. 
 
 found, among many wise counsels to persons 
 subject to spiritual depression, some very- 
 striking examples, interspersed with judi- 
 cious remarks. The importance of special 
 watchfulness and prayer against the invasion 
 of melancholy in the decline of life, espe- 
 cially when the tendency is constitutional, 
 may be inferred from the cases of two per- 
 sons who were overwhelmed with this mal- 
 ady at last, though as far from it in early 
 life as any that the writer ever knew. 
 
 "The first was a man of extraordinary 
 talents, and eloquence; bold and decisive in 
 his temper, and fond of company and good 
 cheer. When about fifty-five or six years 
 of age, without any external cause to pro- 
 duce the effect, his spirits began to sink, and 
 feelings of melancholy to seize upon him. 
 He avoided company, but I had frequent occa- 
 sion to see him, and sometimes he could be 
 engaged in conversation, when he could 
 speak as judiciously as before; but he soon 
 reverted to his dark melancholy mood. On 
 one occasion he mentioned his case to me, 
 and observed with emphasis, that he had no 
 power whatever to resist the disease, and 
 
APPENDIX. 125 
 
 said he, with despair in his countenance, ^ I 
 shall soon be utterly overwhelmed.' And 
 so it turned out, for the disease advanced 
 until it ended in the worst form of mania, 
 and soon terminated his life. The other was 
 the case of a gentleman who had held office 
 in the American army, in the revolutionary 
 war. About the same age, or a little later, 
 he lost his cheerfulness, which had never 
 been interrupted before, and by degrees, 
 sunk into a most deplorable state of melan- 
 choly, which as in the former case, soon 
 ended in death. In this case, the first thing 
 which I noticed, was, a morbid sensibility of 
 the moral sense, which filled him with re- 
 morse, for acts, which had little or no moral 
 turpitude attached to them." 
 
 " The late excellent and venerable James 
 Hall, D. D. of North Carolina, was of a mel- 
 ancholy temperament; and, after finishing 
 his education at Princeton, he fell into a 
 gloomy dejection, which interrupted his 
 studies and labours for more than a year. 
 After his restoration, he laboured success- 
 fully and comfortably in the ministry for 
 11 
 
126 APPENDIX. 
 
 many years, even to old age; but at last 
 was overtaken again, and entirely over- 
 whelmed by this terrible malady. Of all 
 men, that I ever saw, he had the tenderest 
 sympathy with persons labouring under re- 
 ligious despondency. When on a journey, I 
 have known him to travel miles out of his 
 way to converse with a sufferer of this kind; 
 and his manner was most tender and affec- 
 tionate in speaking to such." 
 
 The mistake of imputing to satanic agency 
 what is dependent on bodily disease, is ex- 
 hibited by Dr. Cheyne in the case of the wife 
 of the Rev. John Newton, who was unable 
 to leave the house for nearly two years be- 
 fore she died, in 1790. In the beginning of 
 October, she was confined to her bed, and 
 was soon after deprived of all locomotive 
 power. In this state, distress arose in her 
 mind, which applied to the whole system of 
 truth, and she said, "If there be a Saviour," 
 "If there be a God;" and in this condition 
 continued for a fortnight, when there is rea- 
 son to believe that her doubts were removed. 
 Mr. Newton accounted for his wife's tern- 
 
APPENDIX. 127 
 
 porary unbelief, by referring it to the influ- 
 ence of Satan. "Mrs. Newton's, however, 
 was a case of palsy — depending, as was sup- 
 posed, upon a disease of the brain, by which 
 her faith, the foundation of her religion, was 
 disturbed, while her afl'ections were unin- 
 jured." 
 
 It is well known that Bunyan was griev- 
 ously harassed at times with what he be- 
 lieved to be Satanic temptations to the worst 
 species of evil; and that Luther also sup- 
 posed himself, on one occasion at least, to 
 have been assaulted by the devil. But with 
 regard to certain phenomena which it is com- 
 mon to refer to his influence, such as " unbid- 
 den and repulsive thoughts and feelings, and 
 false perceptions, both voices and visions," 
 says the Essay already quoted, "that they 
 may be produced by mere morbid physi- 
 cal agency, is unquestionable; because they 
 are frequent accompaniments of pure dis- 
 ease, and yield with the disease to medical 
 treatment. Those, therefore, who are called 
 to counsel persons thus afflicted, should never 
 lose sight of the inquiry whether such may 
 
128 APPENDIX. 
 
 not be the actual origin of what otherwise 
 might be treated as temptations of the devil. 
 That Satan may have the power of injecting 
 his malicious or blasphemous suggestions im- 
 mediately into the mind, we have not in- 
 tended at all to controvert. But we are dis- 
 posed to adopt the principle of Dr. Cheyne; 
 that ^ if an appeal to Him who conquered 
 Satan and who will aid all who come to 
 him in faith, fails to relieve those who are 
 thus afflicted, they may rest assured, that 
 disease and not the devil is the enemy with 
 which they have to contend,' and they must 
 seek relief accordingly. 
 
 "And if we are pressed beyond this point, 
 with the hypothesis that while disease may 
 be the proximate cause of these distressing 
 and horrible calamities, yet Satan may be 
 the agent who employs this instrumentality 
 to harass the Christian, we should be inclined 
 to fall back upon the ground thus quaintly 
 maintained by Richard Baxter: *if it were 
 as some fancy, a possession of the devil, it 
 is possible that physic might cast him out. 
 For if you cure the melancholy, (black bile,) 
 his bed is taken away, and the advantage 
 
APPENDIX. 129 
 
 gone by which he worketh; cure the choler 
 (bile) and the choleric operations of the devil 
 will cease : it is by means and humours in 
 us, that he worketh.' '' 
 
 Repeated allusions have been made in the 
 preceding work to the subject of tempera- 
 merits^ by which are meant " the differences 
 that are observed between men, and which 
 are dependent upon the relative predomi- 
 nance of each of their organic systems." 
 
 A certain French writer, has designated 
 these predominances by the term idiosyn- 
 crasies, which " depend constantly on the 
 manner, altogether inexplicable, in which our 
 organs of relation are affected by their modi- 
 fiers." It would be easy to adduce from the 
 records of Pathological Physiology, many 
 curious and instructive examples. 
 
 "Some persons, it is well known, cannot 
 digest certain aliments, unless they are taken 
 at fixed hours, or prepared in a peculiar 
 manner; we see some who never drink when 
 they are in health ; others, who can digest 
 only in a certain posture." The writer was 
 lately informed of a lady, now living in the 
 state of New York, who has enjoyed compa- 
 
130 APPENDIX. 
 
 rative health and bodily comfort, with habi- 
 tual cheerfulness, for more than five and 
 twenty years, while lying on her back. Her 
 appetite is good, her food causes no uneasi- 
 ness, her digestive organs appear to be in a 
 healthful condition, and she seems to be per- 
 fectly well so long as she remains in her re- 
 cumbent posture. But on attempting to 
 stand or even to sit erect, she is involuntarily 
 seized with vomiting, which nothing has 
 been able to arrest, until she returns to her 
 former position. Broussais mentions a lady, 
 in whom the odour of a linseed poultice pro- 
 duced the most violent suffocation, and if she 
 could not escape from it, she was attacked 
 with a stinging erysipelas m the face. A 
 Prussian captain, whom he saw in Paris, in 
 1815, could not bear the sight of a cat, a 
 thimble, or an old woman, without being 
 convulsed and making shocking grimaces. 
 The surviving friends of the late Dr. Blatch- 
 ford, of Lansingburgh, New York, will re- 
 member his instinctive and invincible aver- 
 sion to the cat. Many persons have a dread 
 of a particular animal, as of a mouse, a 
 spider or a toad; some faint at the sight of a 
 rose, the odour of which is so delightful to 
 
APPENDIX. 131 
 
 most. Such are the phenomena that are 
 designated by the term idiosyncrasy; and 
 which we have represented as among the 
 physical causes, by which the moral as well 
 as intellectual part in man is more or less 
 affected. 
 
 As reference has been made in the fore- 
 going tract to certain writers on the subject, 
 or on others akin to it, the names of a few 
 are appended for the guidance of any who 
 may have the leisure and inclination to read 
 them. 
 
 In addition to those already named or 
 quoted, we would mention Pritchard, Pinel, 
 Prout ; Voison on the Moral and Physical 
 Causes of Mental Maladies ; Tissot on the 
 Health of Men of Letters; Hitchcock's Lec- 
 tures on Diet, Regimen, and Employment ; 
 Shepard's Sincere Convert, and Robe on Re- 
 ligious Melancholy. IMost of these writers, 
 of course, view the subject, of which they 
 treat, as philosophers, or men of science. But 
 those who have access to the older English 
 divines, will find that questions of casuistry, 
 spiritual troubles, evidences of grace, &c., are 
 discussed with great ability, and are made 
 far more prominent and important in them 
 
132 APPENDIX. 
 
 than they are in the theological writers of 
 times more modern. The writings on this 
 subject, of the Rev. Timothy Rogers, to 
 whom we have repeatedly referred, are 
 peculiarly instructive to persons labouring 
 under spiritual distress, as having been dic- 
 tated by his ovvn experience. The substance 
 of his discourse on " Trouble of Mind, and 
 the Disease of Melancholy," is given in Dr. 
 Alexander's book already mentioned, which 
 we would commend to the attention of those 
 •who have not access to the original work, 
 which is owned in this country but by few. 
 There are numerous treatises, both medi- 
 cal and religious, on the subject, which are 
 more or less valuable; but '^a clear, tho- 
 rough, and scientific exposition of what are 
 popularly termed cases of religious melan- 
 choly, and in a form suited to general use, 
 and adapted to throw light upon their true 
 character and method of treatment, would 
 be an invaluable addition to our literature.'' 
 
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