Breviate of the Life of Margaret Baxter

This is a tender, grieving portrait of Margaret Baxter, written by the most famous Puritan minister of his generation. Richard Baxter composed this brief life of his wife in the shadow of her death, confessing that he wrote under the power of melting grief, and the rawness of that sorrow gives the work its strange power. Here is no polished hagiography but an unguarded memorial from a man still shattered by loss, determined to preserve the memory of the woman he called his greatest earthly comfort. Margaret Charlton Baxter emerges as a remarkable figure in her own right: a woman of deep piety, intellectual sharpness, and steadfast faith who shared her husband's spiritual vision. The memoir is accompanied by the character of her mother, Frances Charlton, drawn from her published funeral sermon, making this a multi-generational portrait of Puritan womanhood. For historians of religion, this breviate offers an intimate window into 17th-century domestic devotion and the emotional landscape of the godly household.