2) This book deals with so many of the disguises worn by depression and shows how there can be meaning behind it, how much God loves us and will never forsake us                   (I'll get to that section in a later post), etc.  

3) The Puritans weren't some incredibly holy group of people that were not afflicted with the exact same life situations with which we are - and their speech isn't as difficult to read as I expected, though still requires some mulling and context to understand.

Here's an exerpt (I'll take the liberty of condensing some of the verbage):

When a person is in health, he doesn't observe his own behavior in his days of health. Therefore God leads him into sickness, and when he is sick then he observes what his behavior was while he was in health; then, says he, how wonton, worldly, vain was I when I was in health! But, when a man is sick he doesn't observe his behavior in that condition. Therefore God leads him into health again, and then he sees what his behavior was while he was sick. Then he says how froward, impatient I was while I was sick.

We cannot observe the present behavior of our soul in our present condition, and therefore God leads us into a new condition, then we see what was our behavior in our old condition.

Philosophy states that is an object is laid close to it's organ of sense, there will be no sensation (confused yet? just wait, example coming, thank you Mr. Bridge!) If a book be held close to your eye, you will not be able to read a letter of it; but hold it at a convenient distance, and then you ay read it all. Same with how God lovingly leads us. He loves us far too much to leave us in our present condition, He has better in store for us than we can fathom.