A26935:12
Gods goodness vindicated for the help of such (especially in melancholy) as are tempted…
Gods goodness vindicated for the help of such (especially in melancholy) as are tempted to deny it, and think him cruel, because of the present and future misery of mankind, with respect to the doctrine of reprobation and damnation / by Richard Baxter ... ; published and prefaced by a friend at whose desire it was written, and to whom it was committed.
London: printed for N. Simmons, 1671
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
TO help all such persons out of the snare of this dangerous and troublesome temptation, as are described ⟨p. 2⟩in the propounded case, we must have respect. I. To the special case of the Melancholy, who are more liable than others to such disturbances▪ II. To the common cause of their trouble and perplexity, as it consisteth in such opinions as you describe.
TO help all such persons out of the snare of this dangerous and troublesome temptation, as are described ⟨p. 2⟩in the propounded case, we must have respect. I. To the special case of the Melancholy, who are more lyable than others to such disturbances▪ II. To the common cause of their trouble and perplexity, as it consisteth in such opinions as you describe.
I. With the Melancholy, the greatest difficulty lieth, in making them capable to receive plain truths. For it will work, not as it is, but as it i• received. And Melancholy doth breed and seed such kind of thoughts, as naturally as a dead Carcass feedeth Vermin: Of forty or fifty Melancholy ⟨p. 3⟩persons that I have to deal with, there is scarce four that are not buried with suggestions to Blasphemous thoughts, against God or the Sacred Scriptures; and scarce two that are not under dismal apprehensions that they are miserable, undone creatures, (except only some that are all carried to conceits of Prophecies, Revelations, and some rare exalting communications of light unto themselves.) This unhappy disease of Melancholy is first seated in the Organs of Imagination and Passion both, that is in the spirits, and thereby in the very Imagining faculty ⟨p. 4⟩