William Cowper (1731–1800): Light Shining Out of Darkness

by Dan Morley

William Cowper was a man who presented himself with an elegant appearance, being well-proportioned in stature, expressive countenance, a strong voice, intelligent eyes, and sometimes serene and smiling. Nevertheless, behind his intelligent penetrating eyes, William was “overwhelmed with horrors of despair.”[1] He was emotionally troubled in life, suffered from severe depression, fraught with the weight and condemnation of sin, and had attempted suicide multiple times. Richard Edwards described William in the preface to Cowper’s Memoir as having “a constitutional tendency towards derangements.”[2] William was well acquainted with the gnawing despair of anguish and darkness, out of which God shone light.

Early Years

A clergyman by the name of John Cowper was second in descent from Earl Cowper, lord chancellor of England. John and his wife Anne Donne had seven children. Only two survived infancy. The eldest was named William. William was born in 1731 in Hertfordshire. He sat under family worship from infancy and as a result, had reverence for divine truths. However, while light was being shone, there were seeds of darkness. During his infancy, William was described as having an encroaching habitual and constitutional melancholy. To further his disposition of unhappiness, during his childhood, his mother died in childbirth.

William, who was considered advantaged, was sent to Westminster school where he was unhappy due to being bullied, insulted, and irritated by arrogant and boisterous schoolmates. He later studied law at the Inner Temple, however, he lacked initiative and was unproductive due to indolence and an inclination to idleness. He admitted that he was more passionate about retirement. Increasingly, he fled from responsibility. His relatives had intended for him to fill the place of clerk to the House of Lords. However, the prospect of a political patronage appointment caused him to panic. He shrunk with terror from conviction of being unqualified for a government position of civil service. This led to a severe nervous breakdown. His despair drove him to attempt suicide three times. The first attempt was by an overdose of laudanum. The second was an attempt to throw himself from the London bridge, which was thwarted. The third was an attempted hanging. William’s complete breakdown required being removed to a private hospital for mental illness. He relinquished the lucrative and honourable position. His flattering prospects vanished. His connections dissolved. He preferred seclusion.

Darkness

In 1763, William was taken to St Alban’s private madhouse, supervised by Dr. Nathaniel Cotton. William’s madness caused religious terrors. He agonized over an unbearable conviction of being eternally damned. “My sins were now set in array against me and I began to see and feel that I have lived without God in the world” … “There never was so abandoned a wretch, so great a sinner” … “Everything preached to me, and everything preached the curse of the law.”[3] William felt like he was being “assaulted with the darts of hell,”[4] and described a feeling he experienced as being more dreadful a feeling than “a sentence of excommunication from all the churches upon earth.”[5] It seemed to him that a stone had a better chance of weeping over sins than he did. He described feeling “a sense of burning in my heart like that of real fire, and concluded it was an earnest of those eternal flames which would soon receive me.”[6] In a desperate attempt to stupefy his awakened and troubled mind, he was driven by temptation to take laudanum as an opiate, but the very smell of it made him hate and abhor it so that he could not bring himself to take it. The gnawing darkness intensified as he described in detail from the bowels of his soul of his terror and conviction of his misery and yoke of despair:

The eyes of man I could not bear, but when I thought that the eyes of God were upon me (which I felt assured of) it gave me the most intolerable anguish. If, for a moment, a book or a companion stole away my attention from myself, a flash from hell seemed to be thrown into my mind immediately, and I said within myself, “What are these things to me, who am damned?” In a word, I saw myself a sinner altogether, and every way a sinner, but I saw not yet a glimpse of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ.[7]

An experiential knowledge of the mercy of redemption which is in Christ Jesus was still wanting. The mire and despair of internal afflictions that William experienced included horrible visions and voices. Sounds of torment rang in his ears. He felt encompassed by the very sorrows of death and clutched by pains of hell. His extremities would seize with numbness. Life seemed to retreat from him. His soul felt like it clung as if on the brink of departure. As his heart pulsed, every beat seemed to be its last. He felt a darkness that was strange and horrible. His thoughts were wild and incoherent as were his expressions. He felt the awareness of sin and expectation of punishment. He recorded detail about the wretched anguish that he experienced. “The low state of body and mind to which I was reduced was perfectly well calculated to humble the natural vainglory and pride of my heart … These are the efficacious means which Infinite Wisdom thought meet to make use of for that purpose.”[8] Yet, with indifference, his maxim was “Eat and drink, for tomorrow thou shalt be in hell”[9]

Light

A friend of William’s, Rev. Martin Madan, spoke with him about the gospel, of original sin, of the corruption of every man, and everyone being a child of wrath. He spoke to William of the efficacy of the blood of Christ to make atonement for sin, and the accrediting of Christ’s positive righteousness, for our justification. As Madan spoke, William explained that

My heart began to burn within me; my soul was pierced with a sense of my bitter ingratitude to so merciful a saviour – and those tears which I thought impossible burst forth freely. I saw clearly that my case required such a remedy, and had not the least doubt within me but that this was the Gospel of salvation.[10]

Madan urged William of the necessity of a lively faith, to lay hold of it and to embrace it personally. Cowper responded that he wished God would give him the gift of faith. Later on, William found a bible lying on a bench in the garden at St. Alban’s. He opened it and read in the book of John of Lazarus being raised from the dead, and “saw so much benevolence, mercy, goodness and sympathy with miserable man in our saviour’s conduct that I almost shed tears even after the relation, little thinking that it was an exact type of the mercy which Jesus was on the point of extending towards myself.”[11] Later on, he saw a bible near a chair and ventured to read from it. He read Romans 3:25 “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through forbearance of God.” … Cowper exuberates,

Immediately I received strength to believe it, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He made, my pardon sealed in his blood, and all the fullness and completeness of his justification. In a moment I believed, and received the Gospel. Whatever my friend Madan had said to me long before revived in all its clearness, with demonstration of the Spirit and with power.[12]

William was converted in 1763 at 31 years of age. He had conversations with both Dr. Cotton at St. Albans, as well as Mr. Madan which seemed to strengthen gospel contemplation. He did continue to know long intervals of darkness, however, as he advised Dr. Cotton, “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord; he has chastened me sore, but not given me over to death. O give thanks unto the Lord, for his mercy endureth forever.”[13]

Declaring the works of the Lord: Doxology

After recovery and release from St. Alban’s, William found lodging with Rev. Morley and Mary Unwin. While he was there, he spent considerable time attending church services (twice daily), participating with the family in singing hymns, praying, and analyzing spiritual writers. In 1767, Morley Unwin sustained fatal injuries resulting from a fall from his horse. William continued to stay on with Mrs. Unwin who had become like a second mother to him. William watched over her and attended to her with solicitude and fidelity. Shortly thereafter, they joined the parishioners of Olney, the most northern town in Buckinghamshire. There they came under the pastoral care of Olney’s respectable minister, Rev. John Newton.

John Newton came to be very influential to William as “a gentle instrument of grace to him in a diversity of ways.”[14] Newton encouraged William in his interest in composing poems and hymns of expression of his faith. Newton and Cowper collaborated together on Olney Hymns (1779). During this time, in 1774, on the precipice of despair surrounding the occasion of a serious attack of depression and an attempted suicide by drowning, William wrote his last hymn. This hymn in the Olney Hymns bore the title “Light Shining Out of Darkness,” which is more commonly known today as “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.”

In 1780, Newton moved away to London. In 1787, during a six-month bout of depression, William tried to hang himself but was interrupted and cut down by Mrs. Unwin. William continued to live in relative emotional fragility. He was absent from attending worship for several years as Mrs. Unwin’s life was declining around approximately 1791. On April 25, 1800, William died at the age of 69.

It was not that Cowper after his conversion was transposed into some euphoric bliss, but rather amidst that miry smog of clinical, traumatic, and spiritual depression,[15] he knew of a hope to cling to. A hope in the providence of a sovereign God who upholds, directs, arranges, governs, limits, and works all things for his glory and the good of his people. A hope in a transcendent almighty God who permits, limits, orders, and overrules according to his infinite wisdom. A hope from being purchased by the precious blood of Christ. A hope that recognized that this world was not his home, while he longed and groaned for the inheritance of the redeemed as citizens of Christ’s kingdom of glory where:

Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” 

And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.  I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son (Rev. 21:3b-7).

“God Moves in a Mysterious Way”

Cowper’s last hymn he composed certainly discloses the underlying theme of divine providence. Leland Ryken explains that “As Cowper turns that prism in the light, we are led to contemplate various aspects of God’s providence.”[16] God’s perfections are displayed for meditation by the refractions from life’s various circumstances. Cowper’s poetic articulation of light shining out of the darkness of life’s afflictions can be linked to Isaiah 42:16, “I will make darkness light before them, And crooked places straight.” The hymn depicts faith in a sovereign God working according to his agency, who intends for good in what may in worldly and creaturely agencies be done, intended, or perceived for evil. All “crooked” occurrences are second causes in a fallen world that occur as means used mediately in concurrence with a “straight” and sovereign God as the immovable first cause of all things that come to pass.

The hymn will be analyzed in three sections, each section consisting of two stanzas. These three sections deal with God’s mysterious providence (stanzas 1-2); how saints ought to respond (stanzas 3-4); and the saints’ consolation (stanzas 5-6).

Stanza 1

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

Stanza 2

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sov’reign will.

God’s perfection of transcendence is here on display. God’s mysterious “ways” (stanza 1) and “designs” (stanza 2) are beyond human comprehension. Indeed, God’s ways and designs are inscrutable, incomprehensible, unfathomable, and unsearchable to creatures. Romans 11:33b declares “How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” Although the incomprehensibility of God transcends human understanding, he can be apprehended by his divine testimony through his revealed word. God, who is eternal and unmoved, decreed all things that come to pass, and executes his decrees in the works of creation and providence.[17] God is firmly planted without movement or change as the creator of all things and likewise sustains all things from the seas to the storms. Saints are not deists who mistake God to be inactive, but rather acknowledge his external works as pure act[18] according to his sovereign purposes. God providentially preserves and governs all his creatures and all their actions. The person of Jesus Christ demonstrated his divinity by planting his steps on the sea and had power to calm storms (Matt. 8:27: Matt. 14:25, 32-33).

Romans 11:33a declares “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” The depth of God’s infinite wisdom and eternally omniscient archetypal[19] knowledge in his essence, decretive will, and works are indeed too wonderful for creaturely minds, as God who is transcendent “Works his sov’reign will.” “But our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases” (Ps. 115:3).

Stanza 3

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

Stanza 4

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

God’s perfection of sovereignty is on display in these stanzas as saints are given direction on how to respond to God’s providence. Direction is given to “fear not,” “take courage,” “judge not,” and “trust Him.” Saints have access to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16). With such boldness and confidence to enter the presence of a sovereign God, saints may let their requests be made known to God by prayer and supplication, “and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:7).

Behind dreadful clouds and frowning providences, God’s mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:22-23). Indeed, God has blessed his children with every spiritual blessing (Eph. 3:1). John Flavel outlines four meditations to study in affliction in order to “eye Christ” in all the events of providence so as to see that all that comes to pass, whether good or evil, is by his hand. Those mediations to study include “his sovereignty and dominion;” “the wisdom of Christ in the contrivance of your troubles;” “the tenderness and compassion of Christ over his afflicted;” and “the love of Christ to your soul, in affliction.”[20] Cowper’s hymns bear the marks of such contemplative meditations on Christ. Trusting God means resting in his infinite wisdom and almighty sovereignty in both prosperity and in affliction. “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).

Stanza 5

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

Stanza 6

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

The last two stanzas display God’s benevolence and provide consolation during affliction, suffering, and various trials. Regardless of how bad or hostile things may appear, God’s ordained ultimate outcome is for good. This standard of good transcends our perception. It is a divine good according to God’s eternal purposes and plan of redemption and his own glory. In God, “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). The saint’s affliction has been appointed by the infinite wisdom of a benevolent God (Eccl. 7:13-14) who turns afflictions into blessings, making everything beautiful in its time (Eccl. 3:11). The bitter buds of various trials of affliction need to ripen and flower before the afflicted saint tastes the sweetness and admires the flower of God’s smiling face behind his merciful and benevolent providence.

[1] John Corry. The Life of William Cowper, Esquire. With Critical Observations on his Poems (Newgate Street: Vernor and Hood, 1803), 46-47.

[2] William Cowper, Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, ed. Richard Edwards (1816; repr., Minneapolis: Curiosmith, 2017), 10.

[3] David Lyle Jeffrey. “From Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, Esq. Written by Myself”, in William Cowper: Select Poetry and Prose (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007), 15-16.

[4] Corry, The Life of William Cowper, Esquire, 46.

[5] Jeffrey, William Cowper, 17.

[6] Jeffrey, William Cowper, 18.

[7] Jeffrey, William Cowper, 17.

[8] Jeffrey, William Cowper, 20-21.

[9] Jeffrey, William Cowper, 21.

[10] Jeffrey, William Cowper, 19.

[11] Jeffrey, William Cowper, 22-23.

[12] Jeffrey, William Cowper, 23.

[13] Jeffrey, William Cowper, 24.

[14] Jeffrey, William Cowper, 11.

[15]See David P. Murray, Christians Get Depressed Too: Hope and Help for Depressed People (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2010). Murray explains various causes of depression, which are not strictly sin related, but include stress, psychology, sin, sickness, and sovereignty. Murray also explains that there are many conditional factors that can contribute to depression including providential ups and downs of life, unhelpful thought patterns that distort one’s view of reality falsely, unhelpful emotions and feeling of negativity and hopelessness, bodily ailment, distancing from helpful behavior and activities and tending towards what is unhelpful. It would appear that Cowper experienced these conditions in full spectrum.

[16] Leland Ryken, 40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life: A Closer Look at their Spiritual and Poetic Meaning (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2019), 135.

[17] See WSC Q. 7, 8.

[18] actus purus: pure or perfect actualization or actuality. See Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 11.

[19] God’s perfect divine self-knowledge. See Richard A. Muller, “The Relationship of Archetypal and Ectypal Theology.” In Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, vol. 1, Prolegomena to Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 229.

[20] John Flavel, The Fountain of Life: A Display of Christ in His Essential and Mediatorial Glory, in The Works of John Flavel, vol. 1, (1820; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2021), 221-222.