To the Rev. John Newton. [336]
Olney, May 20, 1786.
My dear Friend,—Within this hour arrived three sets of your new publication,[337] for which we sincerely thank you. We have breakfasted since they came, and consequently, as you may suppose, have neither of us had yet an opportunity to make ourselves acquainted with the contents. I shall be happy (and when I say that, I mean to be understood in the fullest and most emphatical sense of the word) if my frame of mind shall be such as may permit me to study them. But Adam's approach to the tree of life, after he had sinned, was not more effectually prohibited by the flaming sword that turned every way, than mine to its great Antitype has been now almost these thirteen years, a short interval of three or four days, which passed about this time twelvemonth, alone excepted. For what reason it is that I am thus long excluded, if I am ever again to be admitted, is known to God only. I can say but this; that if he is still my Father, this paternal severity has toward me been such as that I have reason to account it unexampled. For though others have suffered desertion, yet few, I believe, for so long a time, and perhaps none a desertion accompanied with such experiences. But they have this belonging to them, that, as they are not fit for recital, being made up merely of infernal ingredients, so neither are they susceptible of it; for I know no language in which they could be expressed. They are as truly things which it is not possible for man to utter as those were which Paul heard and saw in the third heaven. If the ladder of Christian experience reaches, as I suppose it does, to the very presence of God, it has nevertheless its foot in the abyss. And if Paul stood, as no doubt he did, in that experience of his to which I have just alluded, on the topmost round of it, I have been standing, and still stand, on the lowest, in this thirteenth year that has passed since I descended. In such a situation of mind, encompassed by the midnight of absolute despair, and a thousand times filled with unspeakable horror, I first commenced as an author. Distress drove me to it, and the impossibility of subsisting without some employment still recommends it. I am not, indeed, so perfectly hopeless as I was; but I am equally in need of an occupation, being often as much, and sometimes even more, worried than ever. I cannot amuse myself as I once could, with carpenters' or with gardeners' tools, or with squirrels and guinea-pigs. At that time I was a child. But since it has pleased God, whatever else he withholds, to restore to me a man's mind, I have put away childish things. Thus far, therefore, it is plain that I have not chosen or prescribed to myself my own way, but have been providentially led to it; perhaps I might say with equal propriety, compelled and scourged into it; for certainly, could I have made my choice, or were I permitted to make it even now, those hours which I spend in poetry I would spend with God. But it is evidently his will that I should spend them as I do, because every other way of employing them he himself continues to make impossible. If in the course of such an occupation, or by inevitable consequence of it, either my former connexions are revived or new ones occur, these things are as much a part of the dispensation as the leading points of it themselves; the effect as much as the cause. If his purpose in thus directing me are gracious, he will take care to prove them such in the issue, and in the meantime will preserve me (for he is able to do that in one condition of life as in another) from all mistakes in conduct that might prove pernicious to myself, or give reasonable offence to others. I can say it as truly as it was ever spoken—Here I am: let him do with me as seemeth him good.
At present, however, I have no connexions at which either you, I trust, or any who love me and wish me well, have occasion to conceive alarm. Much kindness indeed I have experienced at the hands of several, some of them near relations, others not related to me at all; but I do not know that there is among them a single person from whom I am likely to catch contamination. I can say of them all with more truth than Jacob uttered when he called kid venison, "The Lord thy God brought them unto me." I could show you among them two men whose lives, though they have but little of what we call evangelical light, are ornaments to a Christian country; men who fear God more than some who even profess to love him. But I will not particularize farther on such a subject. Be they what they may, our situations are so distant, and we are likely to meet so seldom, that, were they, as they are not, persons of even exceptionable manners, their manners would have little to do with me. We correspond at present only on the subject of what passed at Troy three thousand years ago; and they are matters that, if they can do no good, will at least hurt nobody.
Your friendship for me, and the proof that I see of it in your friendly concern for my welfare on this occasion, demanded that I should be explicit. Assure yourself that I love and honour you, as upon all accounts, so especially for the interest that you take and have ever taken in my welfare, most sincerely. I wish you all happiness in your new abode, all possible success in your ministry, and much fruit of your newly-published labours, and am, with Mrs. Unwin's love to yourself and Mrs. Newton,
Most affectionately yours,
My dear friend,
W. C.
Of all the letters, addressed by Cowper to Newton, that we have yet laid before the reader, we consider the last to be the fullest development of the afflicting and mysterious dispensation under which he laboured. These are indeed the deep waters, the sound of the terrible storm and tempest. We contemplate this state of mind with emotions of solemn awe, deep interest, and merited admiration, when we observe the spirit of patient resignation by which it is accompanied. "Here I am," exclaims Cowper, "let him do with me as seemeth him good." To acquiesce in submissive silence, under circumstances the most opposed to natural feeling, to bear an oppressive load daily, continuously, and with little hope of intermission, and amidst this pressure and anguish of the soul to have produced writings characterised by sound judgment, exalted morality, and a train of lucid and elevated thought, is a phenomenon that must ever remain a mystery; but the poet's submission is the faith of a suffering martyr, and will finally meet with a martyr's triumphant crown.
But, after all, who does not see, in the case of Cowper, the evident marks of an aberration of mind on one particular subject, founded on the delusion of supposing himself excluded from the mercy of God, when his fear of offending him, the blameless tenor of his life, and his anxiety to render his works subservient to the amelioration of the age, prove the fallacy of the persuasion? How can a tree be corrupt which produces good fruits? How can a gracious Lord cast off those who delight in fearing and serving him? The supposition is repugnant to every just and sound view of the equity of the Divine government: God cannot act inconsistently with his own character and attributes. The Bible is the record of what He is, of his declarations to man, of his moral government, and of his dealings with his people. And what does the Bible proclaim? It tells us, "God is love;" "he delighteth in mercy;" he "does not willingly afflict the children of men;" "in all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them." "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." "Fear not, thou worm Jacob; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel."[338] His moral government and the history of his dealings towards the most eminent saints is a powerful illustration of these truths. He may indeed infuse bitter ingredients in the cup of his children: all of them, in due time, taste the wormwood and the gall. It is a part of the covenant; the token of his love, and essential to the trial of their faith and to their purification. But that he ever administers what Cowper here painfully calls infernal ingredients is impossible. These elements of evil spring not from above but from below. They may occur, as in the case of Job, by a permissive Providence, but sooner or later a divine power interposes, and vindicates his own wisdom and equity. We know from various sources of information, that Cowper fully admitted the force of this reasoning, and the justness of its application in every other possible instance, himself alone excepted. The answer to this objection is that the equity of God's moral dealings admits of no exception. Men may change; they may act in opposition to their own principles, falsify their judgment, violate their most solemn engagements, and be influenced by the variation of time and circumstances. But this can never be true of the Divine nature. "I, the Lord, change not." "The same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." "With him is no variableness, nor shadow of turning." "Have I ever been a wilderness unto Zion?"
We have indulged in this mode of reasoning, because it has been our lot to meet with some examples of this kind, and to have applied the argument with success. If the consolations of the Gospel, administered by an enlightened, tender, and judicious minister, formed a more prominent part in the treatment of cases of disordered intellect and depressed spirit, we feel persuaded that the instances of recovery would be far more numerous than they are found to be under existing circumstances—that suicides would be diminished, and the ills of life be borne with more submissive resignation. We consider the ambassador of Christ to be as essential as the medical practitioner. The afflicted father, recorded in the Gospel,[339] as having a lunatic son, "sore vexed," tried all means for his recovery, but without success. It is emphatically said, "they could not cure him;" every thing failed. What followed? Jesus said, "Bring him hither to me." The same command is still addressed to us, and there is still the same Lord, the same healing balm and antidote, and the same Almighty power and will to administer it. What was the final result? "And the child was cured from that very hour," or, as the narrative adds in another account of the same event,[340] "Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted him up, and he arose."
The miracles of Christ, recorded in the New Testament, are but so many emblems of the spiritual power and mercy that heals the infirmities of a wounded spirit.
Other opportunities will occur in the course of the ensuing history to resume the consideration of this important subject.
The strain of affectionate feeling that pervades the following letters to Lady Hesketh, is strongly characteristic of the stability of Cowper's friendships.