The Anatomy of Melancholy

Causes of despair: the devil, melancholy, meditation, distrust, weakness of faith, harsh ministers, misunderstanding Scripture, guilty consciences, and so on.

The chief agent and author of this affliction is the devil. Those whom God forsakes, the devil seizes with God’s permission. Sometimes he torments them with that gnawing worm of conscience, as he did Judas, Saul and others. The poets call it Nemesis, but it is in fact God’s just judgement: late, but in earnest. He strikes home at last and comes upon them like a thief in the night, 1 Thessalonians 2.

This temporary affliction made David cry out, Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or chastise me in your fierce displeasure; for your arrows have struck me, and so on. There is nothing sound in my flesh because of your anger. Again, I roar from the very grief of my heart;

and in Psalm 22: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, and why are you so far from helping me and from the words of my cry? I am like water poured out; my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax melted within me.

So in Psalm 88, verses 15 and 16, and Psalm 102: I am miserable and at the point of death; from my youth I suffer your terrors, fearing for my life; your wrath has swept over me, and the fear you inspire has cut me off. Job often complains in this way. Those whom God does not help, the devil is ready to test and torment, always seeking someone to devour.

If he finds them cheerful, says Gregory, he immediately tempts them to some dissolute act; if troubled and sad, to a desperate end. He either entices them with persuasion or terrifies them with threats: sometimes by fair means, sometimes by foul, according to the inclinations he perceives in different people.

His usual instrument for producing this effect is the melancholy humour itself, which is the devil’s bath, the devil’s bathing place. As with Saul, those evil spirits seem to enter and take possession of us. Black bile is a shoehorn to ease their entrance, a bait to attract them,

so much so that many writers regard melancholy as a common cause and a symptom of despair. Because their bodily constitution is disordered, such people are especially prone to distrust, fear, grief and error, and to magnify whatever they conceive perversely or apprehend falsely. A scrupulous conscience arises from a natural defect, a melancholy constitution, says Navarrus, chapter 27, number 282, volume 2 of Cases of Conscience.

The body acts upon the mind by clouding the spirits and through impaired instruments. Perkins illustrates this with the comparison of a craftsman who has a bad tool: his skill is good and his ability adequate, but because his tools are faulty, his work must be defective and imperfect.