Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was a confirmed middle-aged bachelor and rector of a rural Church of England parish. (He was also numbered among the Puritans but don’t get me started on how often we malign these early American settlers!) Margaret Charlton, who was young, outgoing, and wealthy, came to hear Richard preach. She did not care initially for Richard or his manner of earnest preaching. Eventually, his messages hit home, and Margaret opened her life to Christ. They began courting which caused no little controversy. Here was a prominent church leader, a forty-six-year-old bachelor, seen around the small town of Kidderminster, England with a young, wealthy twenty-six-year-old. They married in 1662, two weeks after Richard and other Puritans were ousted from their pulpits for refusing to follow The Book of Common Prayer to the letter. Richard and Margaret silenced their critics with a loving, committed marriage. Richard wrote, “My dear wife did look for more good in me than she found. We are like pictures that must not be looked at too near. They that come near us find more faults and badness in us than others at a distance know.” Well said, good brother!
For the first ten years of their marriage, Richard was constantly on the run from civil authorities and went to prison for unauthorized preaching. Poor diet and damp living conditions took its toll on Margaret’s tuberculosis, and she died after nineteen years of marriage. Richard wrote a loving tribute to Margaret. “She was better at resolving a case of conscience than all the divines [pastors and theologians] I have ever known.” High praise, indeed!
One of Baxter’s prayers leads us to pray: