Husband

Richard Baxter, "the husband of one wife," is a fine example of the one-woman man, described by Paul in 1 Timothy 3. Frederick J. Powicke pinpoints in Baxter the kind of single-hearted devotion to a wife, which Paul considers essential in a married pastor:

Baxter's love for his wife was a worshipful love. He thought of her as being superior to himself, whom it was as much his privilege to follow in many things as his business to lead; and his one regret was that he proved less worthy of her love than he ought to have been.

In many ways Margaret Baxter really was superior to Richard. His marriage revealed still another facet in Baxter's exceptional abilities as a shepherd and one which modern pastors may want to pay particular attention to; his spirit of humility and submission to others.

Baxter, the confirmed bachelor, was well - known among his contemporaries for his strong views discouraging the marriage of ministers. He cautioned those with a desire to oversee a flock:

The work of the sacred ministry is enough to take up the whole man, if he had the strength and parts of many men...In the primitive Church every congregation had many ministers; but covetousness of clergy and people will now allow scarce two to very great parishes... Believe it, he that will have a wife must spend much of his time in her conference, prayer, and other family duties... And if he have children, O how much care, time and labour they will require.

So, it came as no surprise that his relationship and marriage in September of 1662 to Magaret Charlton, who was but half his age, caused a stir among his powerful enemies in the church and the court. They were quick to point to Baxter's apparent hypocrisy and even intimated that he had married for her considerable wealth. But Baxter maintained and the facts reveal that he never profited from the union, nor did he marry until he "was silent and ejected, and had no flock or pastoral cure."

Initially, there was no mutual attraction between the two. Baxter was too busy and the aristocratic Margaret too worldly. When she first came to Kidderminster she was put off by the piety and poverty of the believers there. But, soon the Spirit began stirring within her and "these convictions did neither die, nor yet pass to despair, but to serious conversion..."

Baxter would discover later that Margaret's love for him was awakening at Kidderminster, shortly after her conversion. But, any hopes she may have had of him returning her affections were certainly deemed futile in light of his views on marriage and his preoccupation with the work at Kidderminster.

All that changed with his move to London in 1660 and ejection in 1662. Margaret and her mother followed Baxter to London and it appears that, in the midst of his setbacks, he was pleased to have friends from Kidderminster so close at hand. The three attended worship together at the parish church each week and Baxter was always a welcome guest in the Charlton home. In January of 1661, Mrs. Charlton died leaving Margaret alone. This event coupled with Baxter's banishment from Kidderminster opened the way for their marriage and marked the beginning of "a Puritan love-story":

When we were married, her sadness and melancholy vanished...And we lived in inviolated love and mutual complacency sensible of the benefit of mutual help. These near nineteen years I know not that we ever had any breach in the point of love, or point of interest...

Powicke illustrates the quality of their marriage with this sketch:

They were fond of singing Psalms to sacred music. And (says Baxter) 'it was not the least comfort that I had in the converse of my late dear wife that our first in the morning and last in bed at night was a Psalm of Praise till the hearing of others interrupted it.' A husband and wife who began and ended each day with a 'Psalm of Praise' sung so heartily as to evoke a protest from the neighbours need no further testimony to their mutual content!

The Baxter household, like all but the poorest of the period, had servants. Margaret was a kind and caring mistress to them, overlooking their faults and mistakes. She insisted that Baxter catechize them once a week and teach them from the Bible at their morning and evening prayers. Unlike others, servants in the Baxter home were treated as family;

She had an earnest desire of the conversion and salvation of her servants, and was greatly troubled that so many of them (although tolerable in their work) went away ignorant, or strange to true godliness, as they came; and such as were truly converted with us she loved as children.

Baxter, the scholar and recluse, was unpolished in the social graces. That fact, coupled with his constant pain, sometimes caused him to become testy or rude while at home. So, Margaret gently scolded him when he was careless or rash in his speech. Rather than consider her a nuisance, he welcomed her "greater exactness" and the peaceful atmosphere,which it produced in their home.

Margaret was even a help to him in his writing. Letters to William Baxter, Richard's nephew and a recognized classical scholar, reveal that she was conversant in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew grammar. But, her real strength was in her wisdom and her practical application of Scripture to life's problems. Baxter was not ashamed to declare her superiority:

...her apprehension of such things was so much quicker, and more discerning than mine... She would at the first hearing understand the matter better than I could do by many and long thoughts... Yes, I will say that... except in cases that required learning and skill in theological difficulties, she was better at resolving a case of conscience than most divines that ever I knew in all my life... Insomuch that of late years, I confess, that I was used to put all, save secret cases, to her and hear what she could say... and she would lay all the circumstances together, compare them, and give me a more exact resolution than I could do.

Baxter's praise carries much weight in light of the fact that he produced A Christian Directory, the 948 page volume which Dr. Timothy Keller deemed "...the greatest manual on Biblical counseling ever produced..." This directory contains question after question concerning the Christian's duty in literally hundreds of specific situations. Written over a period of two years in their home at Acton, one wonders how many of these cases and topics were put to Margaret for consideration before being put to ink by Baxter.

Margaret was a clever and resourceful ,"Proverbs 31 woman." After being cast aside for a decade, Baxter had resigned himself to the fact that he would never again preach to gatherings larger than their small home could contain. Mr. and Mrs. Baxter were permitted to worship at the local parish church every Sunday. Afterwards, Mrs. Baxter would invite some of their poor neighbors in to be taught by Baxter, attracting small crowds who otherwise would never set foot in the parish chapel. This was dangerous business and exposed the Baxters to considerable trouble.

The Baxters continued to touch many lives one by one, but Margaret was not content to see her husband shut away in the country while thousands in the slums of London were deprived of any gospel preaching. In 1673 she contrived a scheme which Baxter remembers:

At London, when she saw me too dull and backward to seek any employment till I was called...she first fisht out of me in what place I most desired more preaching. I told her in St. Martin's Parish, where are said to be forty thousand more than can come into the Church...where neighbors many live like Americans, and have heard no Sermon of many years.

Immediately she rented a large upstairs room where Baxter could preach Sunday mornings and another minister was hired to preach in the evening. During the first meeting the crowd was so great that the floor beam gave out a loud crack which "set them all on running, and crying out the windows for ladders." Mrs. Baxter pushed her way downstairs through the crowd and immediately found a carpenter, who went under the floor and propped up the beam. The building could not contain the crowds attracted by Baxter's preaching.

Not to be defeated, she settled her accounts and set out to have a new chapel built from the ground up on a vacant lot. Baxter preached the first Sunday after its completion, but had to travel to the country on business the following week. Mrs. Baxter hired Mr. Seddon to preach the next Lord's Day. Baxter's enemies, thinking he would be there on Sunday, got a warrant for his arrest and sent three justices. They arrested Mr. Seddon in his place "and all the burden lay on her to maintain him, to visit and comfort him, to pay the lawyer and discharge all fees..."

Baxter could not safely preach there again, so Margaret hired a good, licensed pastor to preach in the new chapel and then set out to find another where Baxter might minister unmolested. Over and over, Margaret contracted a chapel, Baxter was prevented from preaching, and she would raise support for a licensed pastor to come shepherd the poor who flooded in. Ironically, the efforts of Baxter's enemies who proclaimed Christ "out of selfish ambition" and Mrs. Baxter's zeal, worked together to spread the gospel throughout the slums of London.

Margaret's zeal for good works was not without consequence. She was naturally timorous, "like the treble strings of a lute, strained up to the highest, sweet, but in continual danger." Like her husband, she was frail and often sickly. Sometime in 1678 she began experiencing pain in one of her breasts. She feared cancer, so began restricting her diet and employed other folk remedies to fight it off. She became gravely ill for twelve days and died on June 14, 1681.

Margaret had found true Life by losing her own life for the sake of her Master. Baxter was not bitter with the loss of Margaret, but instead acknowledged the Lord's goodness to him:

The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: and He hath taken away but that upon my desert, which He had given me undeservedly near nineteen years. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I am waiting to be next. The door is open. Death will quickly draw the veil, and make us see how near we were to God and one another, and did not sufficiently know it. Farewel(l) vain world, and welcom(e) true everlasting Life.

Within the year he had penned a short account of her life to show us that "...God's service lieth more in deeds than in words."

Baxter married but once. He was truly a "one-woman man," regarding his wife as his companion, his equal in the Lord. Rather than resent her for her charm and abilities, he humbly, almost eagerly, welcomed her instruction and positive influence in their home. When his faith and evangelistic fire diminished, she fanned the flame; When he had no wisdom to impart, he sought hers; And, when his disposition was sometimes sour, he was tempered by her gentle reminders.

How the church today needs men like Baxter; humble, teachable men who understand that Christian ministry is the vocation of every believer, not just leaders. And, what better example of Christian humility than pastors who will patiently and thankfully bear the loving rebukes of their wives, as well as their local fellowship of believers. Let us learn Biblical submission, as Baxter did, by being "much ruled" by the love of brothers and sisters.