William Bridge Encourages the Depressed with Psalm 42:11
Editor's Note: In 2014 Dr. Waugh published on the same subject. However, this article, though similar is certainly different. The present article is updated and contains added information that we believe will benefit the Church. Enjoy!
William Bridge was born about the year 1600 in Cambridgeshire, England. He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, earning the B.A. in 1623 and M.A. in 1626. Bridge is described in Calamy Revised, as “A very hard student, and rose at Four O’Clock in the Morning summer and winter, and continued in his study till Eleven.” He was then ordained in the Church of England and became rector of St. Peter's, Hungate, Norwich. He was suspended from the pulpit for refusing to follow the injunctions of Bishop Matthew Wren, and in conjunction with the excommunication a writ was issued for the arrest of Bridge. He joined others persecuted for their doctrine when he left the country to take refuge in Holland. Rotterdam was where he settled and renounced his Anglican ordination before being ordained an independent minister. He returned to England in 1642 and joined Philip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, Jeremiah Burroughs, and Thomas Goodwin as one of the “Five Dissenting Brethren” that actively promoted independent church government at the Westminster Assembly until it became clear their cause was lost. He remained in England promoting and establishing independent churches. Bridge died at Clapham on March 12, 1670.
It was in the year 1648 that William Bridge preached at Stepney, London, the thirteen sermons published the next year in A Lifting up for the Downcast. Politically the nation was in the second leg of the civil war with the climax to occur in 1649 with the execution of King Charles I. Economic, political, and agricultural uncertainties associated with the war made for a particularly timely preaching ministry for Bridge, especially for his exposition of Psalm 42:11.
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God. For I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God. (KJV)
A Lifting Up offers several perspectives on his subject, but for this article four of Bridge's insights will be considered: peace and discouragement, Trinitarian peace, covenantal consolation, and the defeat of discouragement through Christ. The page references given in parentheses are to the Banner of Truth edition published as A Lifting Up for the Downcast, 2009.
Peace and Discouragement
Bridge's presentation of peace during discouragement is given through three truths he observed in the first part of his passage, which reads,
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God.
The first truth is, "there is an inward peace and quietude of soul, which the saints and people of God ordinarily are endued with" (7). A Christian's foundational peace is built on the knowledge that sins are forgiven through justification by faith. Without justification, there cannot be abiding peace. However, Bridge's second truth about Christian peace is that it "is possible ... this peace may be interrupted, and God's people may be much discouraged, cast down and disquieted" (7). So, the Christian enjoys "inward peace" based on forgiveness for sins, which was Bridge's first truth, but that peace may be disturbed by circumstances and trying times, which is the second truth. The resolution to the believer's downcast condition is found in Bridge's third fundamental truth, "the saints and people of God have no reason for their discouragements whatever their condition may be" (7). It may seem insensitive for Bridge to say that suffering saints have no reason for being discouraged, but he is not rebuking the downhearted for despondency but instead turning them to the fundamental truth of their lives which is, “If God be for us, who [or what] can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). It is an argument from the lesser to the greater in that given the challenges of spiritual depression, the glory and greatness of justification provides the means to overcome as the afflicted grows in sanctification and realizes God’s providential hand even in their hard times.
Trinitarian Peace
The peace which the Christian enjoys is Trinitarian because its source is in the ministry of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This Trinitarian nature of God's peace is effected in the Christian's life through each person of the Trinity ministering in a manner unique to His consubstantial person. Bridge argues from the lesser to the greater throughout A Lifting Up; when problems causing distress are considered in the light of the greater power of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then those personal difficulties seem small before the greatness of God. Bridge expresses Trinitarian comfort so well.
The saints and people of God are, as I may so speak, of God's special acquaintance, and so they have peace, for they walk with God, and have communion with Him. They have communion with the Father, and He is the God of all consolation; they have communion and fellowship with the Son, and He is the Prince of Peace; they have communion and fellowship with the Spirit, and He is the Comforter. They have communion with the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, in and by the gospel; and that is the word of peace, the gospel of peace. The saints and people of God, therefore, ordinarily have peace within (9).
The Father gives peace to the Saints by His prerogative in that it is the will of God to give inward peace to His people (9). God the Father will also give consolation through His promise of peace as described in Psalm 29:11 and Isaiah 26:3 (10). It is an element of the Father's ministry to the redeemed that He gives not only eternal peace through the forgiveness of sin, but also the temporal peace necessary to face the vicissitudes of life.
The Son is engaged to give peace because He is qualified and endowed to do so by the Father as described prophetically in Isaiah 41:4 (11,12). John 14:27, 20:19 shows the Son's disposition is as a meek but powerful shepherd who has a tender and loving concern for His sheep (13). The Son's office, as the great High Priest ministering between God and man, fulfills the Old Covenant priesthood ministrations. What is more, the Son has suffered the temptations of this world and compassionately brings peace.
The Holy Spirit is engaged to give peace to the saints as their executor and advocate. The Holy Spirit executes Christ's will to bring peace to the Saints as the great Comforter who was promised (13f). Though Jesus is the Christian's advocate, Bridge notes that in effect there are two advocates, "but I say, we have, as it were two Advocates, one in heaven above [Jesus], and one in our bosom [the Holy Spirit]" according to 1 John 1:2; John 14:16 (14). Bridge's vivid language shows the application of the Comforter's work within the follower of Christ. Thus, the disheartened and beleaguered believer is not left alone in affliction. The energy and perseverance to achieve resolution is Trinitarian as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work within the individual and govern through providence the path to resolution.
Covenantal Consolation
God's Covenant provides assurance that the redeemed will never again lie under God's wrath because Jesus bore that wrath for the elect. The Lord's blessings come to the people of God through the mercy of salvation which yields both temporal and eternal security. Bridge comments on the Covenant with reference to the Noahic administration.
Therefore, if God be in covenant with a man, he shall never lie under wrath again; for though the world sin, the world shall never be drowned again; and so, though he commit sin, he shall never lie under wrath again. Now as for the people of God, they are all in covenant with God; they are under this gracious covenant, and therefore, though the mountains may be removed, God's mercy shall never be removed from them; and though the great hills may be thrown into the sea, the people of God, once in covenant with God, shall never be thrown into hell. Tell me then, have you that are the people of God, any just cause or reason to be cast down, or to be discouraged? (71)
The covenantal bond provides assurance even if the greatest catastrophes occur. The comments regarding the greatness of the covenant end with his oft-repeated question, "have you any ... just cause or reason to be cast down," which he uses to turn the depressed to their God. The covenant assures God's people that they will not be abandoned in their trials. Bridge observes further that "thus it is with every child of God. He is in this covenant of grace, and so the privileges and immunities of all this great charter belong unto him" (107-108, 136-37). The Covenant of Grace brings reassurance to the downcast. The covenant is the believer's greatest and surest encouragement because it is rooted in the strength, might, sacrificial blood, and power of God. Bridge turns the disconsolate to what God has done in His covenantal condescension to bring the grace of redemption and its resulting peace, hope, and comfort. It is so easy to forget the daily care and concern the Lord has for His people, but as Bridge reminds us, God is greater than any troubles and his past blessings should be reminders that He is greater than all calamities, all pains, all oppression, all conflicts, and that all God’s greatness is present and future as it has been in the past.
Discouragement Defeated with Faith in Christ
The last sermon in A Lifting Up is titled, "The Cure of Discouragements by Faith in Jesus Christ," which is both an evangelistic appeal to the downcast to believe the Gospel and encouragement to discouraged Christians to live in faith. The theme is, in good pastoral fashion, short but sweet--Faith is the help against all discouragements (262). Faith rests upon Christ for redemption, but faith also is applied in daily living and growth in sanctification. Though the Christians of the seventeenth century were discouraged by wars and disasters, fearsome diseases & plagues, and the daily struggles to live faithfully in service to Christ--Faith is the help against all discouragements. The restless soul cannot find repose until it rests through faith in the arms of the Sovereign of the universe and lives to His glory.
Fear and discouragement, observed Bridge, arise in Jesus’ followers because they sometimes do not see their situations fully with the eyes of faith (268). Examples presented to make his point include problems being blown out of proportion, or conversely, not seen to be as severe as they really are; temptations appear to be unendurable despite the promise of 1 Corinthians 10:13; and afflictions may often seem to be pointless by the downcast person (268). Bridge expanded on his ideas.
Now it is only faith that shews a man the end and the issue of all his troubles. It stands upon the high tower of the threatening and promise, seeing over all mountains and difficulties; it sees into the other world; it sees through death and beyond death; it sees through affliction and beyond affliction; it sees through temptation and beyond temptation; it sees through desertion and beyond desertion; it sees through God's anger and beyond His anger; I say, it sees things past, present and to come. If a man had such power as to be able to recollect all his former experiences, to see things present as they are, and to see all the events and issues of things to come, would he not be quiet notwithstanding all that might arise for the present? Thus, faith is able to shew a man things past, present, and to come; and to shew him greater matter of comfort than the matter of his troubles is, and in so doing it must needs quiet the soul (269-70).
What a magnificent portion of seventeenth-century prose, and it must have been glorious to hear it from Bridge’s pulpit, in his voice, and with emphasis through gestures. True faith sees that the answers to all fears, anxieties, miseries, and wants are found only in Christ (270). One of the illustrations used by Bridge is an example from the English Reformer Hugh Latimer who said as he and Nicholas Ridley went to the stake, "Come, my beloved brother though we pass through the fire today, yet we shall light such a candle in England as shall never be put out again." Bridge says that Latimer exhibited faith to see beyond the troubles and confusion of this life and into God's greater purpose (274). Though the example of Latimer and Ridley has been often used by ministers, it never fails to show the spectacles of redeemed vision worn by the two martyrs as they looked beyond the present to their anticipated future influence.
Conclusion
Many would say that nothing could be learned from a book first published over three-hundred-fifty years ago. It might be said that because Bridge lived so long ago his teaching cannot help a person today suffering discouragement and depression because his world was nothing like that of the twenty-first century. They might say things are just too different. Bridge read books printed on paper and covered with leather, but today book pages might be electrons formed into words behind a sheet of glass. He likely lived in a house with a few rooms, roofed with thatch, and heated by a primitive fireplace, but today there is electricity, central heating, and fire-retardant construction materials. His idea of rapid transit was riding a horse instead of walking, but currently automobiles, trains, and aircraft speed travelers to their destinations. The list of differences could go on. However, no matter how much one might protest the political, social, technological, and other changes, there is one thing that is the same—
Those dead in trespasses and sin need to be raised to newness of life through the grace of redemption.
As Bridge noted, justification is by faith, but faith also becomes a way of life for the Christian as God works all things together for good including the situations in which the believer becomes downcast, depressed, and discouraged.
In the 1640s in England, believers might have been downcast about the already mentioned Civil War between Parliament and the Crown; the dismal forecast for harvesting a good field of crops; the rising price of waddle-and-daub timber frame homes; or the rumors of a strange new epidemic on the Continent killing thousands. In the twenty-first century there is concern about terrorism, pesticides, contaminated food, the mortgage rate, political systems, wars, and pandemics and diseases, but fundamentally and in their nature, people are the same, "for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." When Bridge died in 1670, England had suffered the Great Plague of London that killed 70,000 in 1665, the Great Fire of London that destroyed 13,200 homes in 1666, and loss of a two-year war with the Dutch in 1667, so as A Lifting Up was published and distributed there were many suffering in a downcast condition but through Bridge’s sermons they could be in some cases converted or encouraged in their faith.
Bridge calls downcast Christians to take their eyes off their conditions, then look to God who is the author and finisher of their salvation. Today, as in the seventeenth century, consolation is found in the fundamental peace of redemption, the unique compassionate ministries of the persons of the Trinity, and the Covenant of Grace. True biblical, redemptive faith views the Christian's circumstances as the working out of God's caring and compassionate will, so Bridge turns the beleaguered follower of Jesus to Psalm 42:1, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?," which he answers with the Great Comforter illuminating Scripture’s assurance about the everlasting arms of God wrapped around those bought with the price of Christ’s blood.
If you are interested in learning more about William Bridge, Brian G. Hedges has written An Infinite Treasury: Grace in the Piety of William Bridge, Reformation Heritage Publishers, 2024. He provides a biography and 45 brief excerpts from Bridge’s works including seven from A Lifting Up. The excerpts are three to five pages long and could easily be used for devotional reading.
Dr. Barry Waugh is a church historian and scholar.
