Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
William Cowper: The troubled and talented saint
William Cowper: The troubled and talented saint
Apr 3, 2025 5:21 AM

The English poet and hymn writer William Cowper (1731-1800, pronounced Cooper) was afflicted with severe bouts of depression and haunting despair for virtually all of his life. While he was a contemporary of George Whitefield and John Wesley, and Rev. John Newton served as a mentor, many have not heard of this 18th century English writer.

Much of Cowper’s depression and anguish stems from the death of his mother and four of his siblings all by the age of six. Cowper was then sent away to boarding school and terrorized for a number of years by an older bully. Later, he fell in love with a cousin only to have her father abruptly end the relationship. The refusal left a young Cowper deeply troubled and distraught. Cowper was pressured into law by his own father, an Anglican minister who was also the chaplain for George II. He buckled under the pressure and made several suicide attempts in ing days. After several failed attempts by various methods he tried to hang himself with a garter, but it broke while he was unconscious on his third attempt.

His friends then intervened, and he was sent to an insane asylum run by a poet mitted Christian, Dr. Nathaniel Cotton. Under the guidance of Cotton he read Scripture and withdrew for a time from the misery inside his mind. Cowper read a passage from 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 the forbearance of God.” Cowper declared:

Immediately I received the strength to believe it, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my pardon sealed in His blood, and all the fullness pleteness of His justification. In a moment I believed, and received the gospel. Unless the Almighty arm had been under me, I think I should have died with gratitude and joy. My eyes filled with tears, and my voice choked with transport; I could only look up to heaven in silent fear, overwhelmed with love and wonder.

Cowper would continue to struggle in life with mental illness and a general melancholy. Often, he would withdraw into fits of despair because of dreams he had of God rejecting him. However, he became friends with John Newton and piled a work of writings in 1779 called the Olney Hymns. It produced many popular English hymns including Newton’s “Amazing Grace.” Another popular tune came from Cowper titled, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” The first verse reads:

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;

And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Cowper wrote many popular poems and was ahead of his time with his focus on a new sensitivity to nature and his surroundings, which greatly influenced the Romantic poets. Samuel Taylor Coleridge praised him as the “the best modern poet.”

Cowper also translated Homer and John Milton’s Greek and Latin poems. In addition, he became involved in the abolition movement, which was gaining greater concern from evangelical Christians during his life. However, perhaps his greatest legacy is how God used him mightily through his years of affliction and mental anguish. Cowper’s words and life speak to the very sovereignty, grace, and mystery of a God that saves, uplifts, and enlivens the troubled soul.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Verse of the Day
  2 Corinthians 12:9 In-Context   7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.   8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.   9 But he said to me, My grace is sufficient...
Verse of the Day
  John 3:18 In-Context   16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.   17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.   18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned,...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:1-3   (Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-3)   The excellent way had in view in the close of the former chapter, is not what is meant by charity in our common use of the word, almsgiving, but love in its fullest meaning; true love to God and man. Without this, the most glorious gifts are...
Verse of the Day
  Deuteronomy 4:29 In-Context   27 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you.   28 There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.   29 But if from there you seek the Lord your...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on James 3:1-12   (Read James 3:1-12)   We are taught to dread an unruly tongue, as one of the greatest evils. The affairs of mankind are thrown into confusion by the tongues of men. Every age of the world, and every condition of life, private or public, affords examples of this. Hell has more to do...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Proverbs 10:19   (Read Proverbs 10:19)   Those that speak much, speak much amiss. He that checks himself is a wise man, and therein consults his own peace.   Proverbs 10:19 In-Context   17 Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.   18 Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips and spreads...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:15-20   (Read Deuteronomy 30:15-20)   What could be said more moving, and more likely to make deep and lasting impressions? Every man wishes to obtain life and good, and to escape death and evil; he desires happiness, and dreads misery. So great is the compassion of the Lord, that he has favoured men, by...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Matthew 7:1-6   (Read Matthew 7:1-6)   We must judge ourselves, and judge of our own acts, but not make our word a law to everybody. We must not judge rashly, nor pass judgment upon our brother without any ground. We must not make the worst of people. Here is a just reproof to those who...
Verse of the Day
  1 Corinthians 1:10 In-Context   8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.   9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.   10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters,The Greek word for brothers and sisters (adelphoi...
The Intersection of Christianity and Libertarianism
A brief summary of the article discussing the intersection of Christianity and libertarianism.
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved