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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26870	A breviate of the life of Margaret, the daughter of Francis Charlton ... and wife of Richard Baxter ... : there is also published the character of her mother, truly described in her published funeral sermon, reprinted at her daughters request, called, The last work of a believer, his passing-prayer recommending his departing spirit to Christ, to be received by him.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1681 (1681)	Wing B1194; ESTC R1213	62,400	127

is a good friend But Art and Industry are necessary to the improvement And no wonder when we fetch not the help and comfort which we might have from God from Christ himself from Heaven from Scripture for want of improving skill and industry O how easie is it when our friends are taken from us to say Thus and thus I might and should have used them rather than so to use them while we have them I hope God will help me to make some better use of thee while we are together and at a distance O let not a hearty request to God for each other be any day wanting Dear heart the time of our mutual help is short O let us use it accordingly but the time of our reaping the fruit of this and all holy endeavours and preparatory mercies will be endless Yet a little while and we shall be both with Christ. He is willing of us and I hope we are willing of him and of his Grace though the flesh be weak I am absent but God is still with you your daily Guide and Keeper and I hope you will labour to make him your daily Comfort And now you have none to divert and hinder you to say When I awake I am still with thee And when you are up I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved And when Thoughts crowd in In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy Comforts delight my Soul And when Thoughts would trouble and perplex you My Meditation of him shall be sweet and I will delight in the Lord. And when your Wants and Duty call you to him It is good for me to draw nigh to God All other comforts will be as the things are which we take comfort in that is Helpful if the things be helpful and used but as Helps Hurtful if the things be hurtful or hurtfully used Vain if the things be vain Short if the things be transitory and durable if the things are durable to us And this is the chief comfort which you and I must have in one another that is as helpful towards God and as our converse with him will be durable The Lord forgive my great unprofitableness and the sin that brought me under any disabilities to answer your earnest and honest desires of greater helps than I afford you and help me yet to amend it towards you But though my Soul be faulty and dull and my strength of Nature fail be sure that he will be a thousand fold better to thee even here than such crooked feeble useless things as is From Hampden Thy R. B. CHAP. IX Of her Bodily Infirmities and her Death § 1. HER diseased frightfulness and many former sicknesses I have mentioned before A great pain of the Head held her from her youth two or three days every Fortnight or little more and upon every thing that did irritate the matter she had a constant straitness in the Lungs a great incapacity of much exercise motion or any heating thing Ever since her sickness 1659. she hath lived in an ill-conceited fear of distraction which greatly hurt her It was because she had an Aunt long so deceased and her Parents were naturally passionate and her spirits over-quick and her blood thin and Mobile and though wisdom hid it from others in her converse she felt the trouble of her own mind in things as aforesaid that much displeased her and so lived in a constant fear which tended to have brought on her what she feared But her understanding was so far from failing that it was higher and clearer than other peoples but like the treble strings of a Lute strained up to the highest sweet but in continual danger § 2. About three years ago by the mis-perswasion of a friend drinking against the Collick a spoonful of powdered Ginger every morning near a quarter of a year together and then falling into some over-whelming thoughts besides it overthrew her Head for a few days but God in great mercy soon restored her § 3. Ever since that time her Head-ach abated and she complained of a pain in one of her Breasts and her uncurable timerousness setled her in a conceit that she should have a Cancer which I saw no great cause to fear but she could neither endure to hear that it was none or that it was but in fearing uncertainty prepared constantly for a sad death And several Friends Neighbours and Relations lately dying of Cancers increased her fear but she seemed to be prepared cheerfully to undergo it § 4. The many and weekly rumors of Plots Firings Massacres c. much increased this fear as is aforesaid and the death of very many Neighbours young strong and excellent Christians of greatest use and many near friends did greatly add to her sadness and expectations of death But little of this was seen to any she purposely carried it pleasantly and as merrily to others when she was troubled § 5. The fears of a Cancer made her take the Waters for Physick often and she kept down her body so in her diet that about five Ounces of Milk or Milk and Water with a little Chocolate in it morning and night and about one or two bits at Dinner was her diet for many years § 6. At last about ten weeks before her sickness almost all her pain went out of her Breast and all fixed in a constant pain upon the right Kidney and with the pain her Urine stopt that about four parts of five ceased for about ten weeks She divers days drunk Barnet-Waters but I think they were the last occasion of her sickness and too much tincture of Amber which work't too powerfully on her Brain and suddenly cast her into strong disturbance and deliration in which though the Physicians with great kindness and care did omit nothing in their power she died the 12th day She fell sick on Friday Iune 3. 1681. and died Iune 14. § 7. Though her understanding never perfectly returned she had a very strong remembrance of the affecting passages of her life from her childhood Mrs. Corbet whom she dearly loved and had newly got into the house to be her companion with others standing by she cried out to me My mother is in Heaven and Mr. Corbet is in Heaven and thou and I shall be in Heaven And even in her last weakness was perswaded of her salvation § 8. She oft shewed us that her soul did work towards God crying out complaining of her Head Lord make me know what I have done f●r which I undergo all this Lord I submit God chooseth best for me She desired me to pray by her and seemed quietly to join to the end She heard divers Psalms and a Chapter read and repeated part and sung part of a Psalm her self The last words that she spake were My God help me Lord have mercy upon me § 9. God had been so many years training her up under the

duties for them besides the time and perhaps caring thoughts that all his Family expences and affairs will require And then it will disquiet a man's mind to think that he must neglect his Family or his Flock and hath undertaken more than he can do My conscience hath forced me many times to omit secret prayer with my Wife when she desired it for want of time not daring to omit far greater work 2. And a Minister can scarce look to win much on his Flock if he be not able to oblige them by gifts of charity and liberality And a married man hath seldom any thing to spare especially if he have children that must be provided for all will seem too little for them Or if he have none House-keeping is chargeable when a single man may have entertainment at easie rates and most women are weak and apt to live in fear of want if not in covetousness and have many wants real or fancied of their own to be supplied 3. In a word St. Paul's own words are plain to others but concern Ministers much more than other men 1 Cor. 7. 7 c. I would that all men were as I my self It is good for them they abide even as I 28. Such shall have trouble in the flesh 32. I would have you without carefulness He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord how he may please the Lord but he that is married careth for the things of the world how he may please his wife This is true And believe it both caring for the things of the world and caring to please one another are businesses and troublesome businesses care for house-rent for children for servants wages for food and rayment but above all for debts are very troublesome things and if cares choak the word in hearers they will be very unfit for the mind of a Student and a man that should still dwell on holy things And the pleasing of a Wife is usually no easie task There is an unsuitableness in the best and wisest and likest Faces are not so unlike as the apprehensions of the mind They that agree in Religion in Love and Interest yet may have daily different apprehensions about occasional occurrences persons things words c. That will seem the best way to one that seems worst to the other And passions are apt to succeed and serve these differences Very good people are very hard to be pleased My own dear Wife had high desires of my doing and speaking better than I did but my badness made it hard to me to do better But this was my benefit for it was but to put me on to be better as God himself will be pleased That it's hard to please God and holy persons is only our fault But there are too many that will not be pleased unless you will contribute to their sin their pride their wastfulness their superfluities and childish fancies their covetousness and passions and too many who have such passion that it requireth greater skill to please them than almost any the wisest can attain And the discontents and displeasure of one that is so near you will be as Thorns or Nettles in your bed And Paul concludeth to be un-married is the better that we may attend the Lord without distraction v. 35 38. And what need we more than Christ's own words Mat. 19. 10 11 12. when they said then It is not good to marry he answers All men cannot receive this saying save they to whom it is given For there are some Eunuchs who were so born from their Mothers womb and there are some Eunuchs who were made Eunuchs by men and there be Eunuchs which have made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heavens sake He that is able to receive it let him receive it Oh how many sad and careful hours might many a Minister have prevented And how much more good might he have done if being under no necessity he had been sooner wise in this § 18. Another Use of this History is to shew men that it is not God's or our Enemies afflicting us in worldly losses or sufferings especially when we suffer for Righteousness sake which is half so painful as our own inward Infirmities A man's Spirit can bear his Infirmities of outward Crosses but a wounded Spirit who can bear My poor Wife made nothing of Prisons Distrainings Reproaches and such Crosses but her burden was most inward from her own Tenderness and next from those whom she over-loved And for mine own part all that ever either Enemies or Friends have done against me is but as a flea-biting to me in comparison of the daily burden of a pained Body and the weakness of my Soul in Faith Hope Love and Heavenly Desires and Delights § 19. And here you may see how necessary Patience is and to have a Mind fortified before-hand against all sorts of Sufferings that in our Patience we may possess our Souls And that the dearest Friends must expect to find much in one another that must be born with and exercise our Patience We are all imperfect It hath made me many a time wonder at the Prelates that can think it the way to the Concord of Millions to force them to consent to all their Impositions even of Words and Promises and Ceremonies and that in things where Conscience must be most cautelous whereas even Husband and Wife Master and Servants have almost daily Differences in judging of their common Affairs § 20. And by this History you may see how little cause we have to be over-serious about any worldly matters and to mind and do them with too much intensness of Affection and how necessary it is to possess them as if we possest them not seeing the time is short and the fashion of this world passeth away And how reasonable it is that if we love God our selves yea or our Friends that we should long to be with Christ where they are far more amiable than here and where in the City of God the Ierusalem above we shall delightfully dwell with them for ever Whereas here we were still sure to stay with them but a little while And had we here known Christ after the flesh we should so know him no more Whereas believing that we shall soon be with him even those that never saw him may rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of Glory § 21. Lastly Here you may see that as God's Servants have not their portion or good things in this Life so they may have the same Sicknesses and manner of Death as others Lazarus may lie and die in his sores among the Dogs at the door when Dives may have a pompous Life and Funeral There is no judging of a mans Sincerity or of his future state by his Disease or by his Diseased Death-bed words He that liveth to God shall die safely into the hand of God though a Fever or Deliration hinder him from knowing this till Experience and sudden possession of Heaven convince him Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours and their works do follow them Rev. 14. 13. Therefore in our greatest straits and sufferings let us comfort one another with these words That we shall for ever be with the Lord. Had I been to possess the company of my Friends in this Life only how short would out comfortable converse have been But now I shall live with them in the Heavenly City of God for ever And they being there of the same mind with my forgiving God and Saviour will forgive all my Failings Neglects and Injuries as God forgiveth them and me 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 vain World and welcom true Everlasting Life FINIS

just advice And that I will speak my reasons and heart-risings against any thing that is propounded to me which I judg unmeet And I resolved when I saw my duty cheerfully to do it and keep a sense of the sweetness and obligations of Gods love and mercy III. I resolved to pray and labour for a true sense of the sins of this Nation in general and in particular of the sins of my Relations and of my own And that till it please God to give me cause of rejoycing on the behalf of my Relations and of my own souls recovery and spiritual welfare I will continue with humiliation to supplicate the Lord. And though I would not shut out a greater duty by a lesser yet I will avoid all manner of Feastings as much as I well can and all noxious sensual delights and when I must be present I will use some mortifying restraint And this I would do in my habit and all other things but that I would lay no snare on my self by renouncing what occasions may oblige me to but by all means I would strive to keep upon my heart a sense of my friends danger and my own IV. I resolve if Providence concur to go to London as soon as I can after the day of Thanksgiving for the reasons mentioned in another place § 9. What these reasons were I find not This following fragment of hers hints something of it I begin already to be sensible of my misusing the helps which God had given me I know now how I should love Ordinances and means of grace and to what end not to break my heart when Providence removeth them from me or me from them but I should love them for God and use them for him and expect my greatest comfort from him and not from men and means themselves This is no more than what I thought I had known long ago but I never knew it indeed till now And now I do but begin to know it When I felt my heart ready to sink under a burden of sorrow God was pleased to ask me what I ailed Was my condition worse than ever Had I less hopes of his love than heretofore if not why do I mourn more than when I lay under that curse What is it that I have chosen for my hope and happiness is that lost and gone Am I left in such a place or case as God cannot be found in if I truly seek him or that God cannot sweeten with his presence if not why do I not contentedly thank God for what I have already had I cannot say it 's better that I had never had it than now to leave it no I must be willing to submit to God and be humbled in the sense of my abuse of mercy so far as it may quicken me to diligence for the time to come And if ever God more trust me with such treasure as once I had I will strive to shew that I better know the worth of it than I did before My thoughts often tell me that if I were but in a condition in which I had opportunity to serve God with more cost to the flesh than I here do it would either shew my hypocrisie or give me more assuring evidence that I am indeed sincere § 10. And it is a useful note that I find added to this by her If my trouble be for my sin 1. My care will be more for the removing of my sin than of the affliction 2. And if God should take away the affliction it would not content me unless sin be taken away and my heart amended 3. If it be sin that I am troubled for it will be my great care not to sin in my trouble 4. And if it be my sin that troubleth me I have the more cause to submit to Gods hand and silently bear the punishment of my iniquity it shameth murmuring when we truly look on sin the cause though it bring the wholsome sorrow of repentance 5. And if I mourn for fear lest God be departing I should seek him and cleave the closer to him and not depart from God and then he will not depart from me § 11. I will conclude this Chapter with a Countrey Poem of her honest Kinsman Mr. Eleazer Careswell of Sheffnall in Shropshire whom I never knew to Poetrize but now that tender love and passion taught him it signifieth these though it want the flowry part Her danger of death so near to her conversion was very grievous to him MARGARET CHARLTON Anagram Arm to later change The prudent soul refin'd from earth doth ever Arm to her later change and fears it never Those glittering Monarchs who seem to command This Ball shall be by deaths impartial hand Put out and doom'd to an eternal state No mortal sinner can decline this fate Death conquers Scepter-swaying Kings but I Shall conquer Death being now arm'd to dye Arm Soul for this one change and wed thy heart To Christ and then no death shall ever part Your joined souls and thou because that He Hath Life of Life shalt still possessed be Death will but this snarl'd knot of Life untie To unite Souls in a more blessed tie When Faith renewing grace repenting tears Hath cleard the soul from filth and she appears Unspotted holy pure invested in Christs milk-white snowie Robes quite freed from sin Wholly deliver'd from this fleshly thrall And Hells black Monarch and adorn'd with all Gods perfect grace Triumphantly these sing Death and Hell conquer'd are by Christ our King Faith Hope and Love such Souls now fortifie And armed thus why should we fear to dye Tho' Death divorce those long acquainted friends And lodg earth in the earth the soul ascends To those high glorious Regions where she With Christ and blessed souls shall ever be Soul troubling sin shall then molest no more Which clog'd which wounded her so long before Poor souls go fetter'd here with flesh and sin Death doth her great deliverance begin Thy soul renew'd by grace shall quickly see How blest a change that day will bring to thee Death shall those weeping eyes dry up and close And pained weary flesh to rest repose The grave will be a safe and quiet bed To that frail body when the soul is fled This aking head shall there be laid to rest Whilst thy glad soul of glory is possest As banisht griefs end in that quiet sleep Thy dust is holy it thy Lord will keep Till the last trumpet sound and he shall raise The just and unjust at the last of days Then the refined body shall again It s late dislodged soul re-entertain And re-united chant well-tuned lays Unto the Lamb whose soul-enamouring rays Shall ravish Saints with blessed perfect joy Freed from whatever would their rest annoy Where they with flaming love and pleasure sing Holy melodious praise to God their King Rise then my soul thy thoughts from earth estrange The first is wrought Arm to thy later change Thus the good

to supply the notorious necessities of the people and as helpers of the allowed Ministry The good woman thought this had been reading the Common-Prayer and in a Letter which I now find accused my Wife with five or six vehement charges for telling her I would not read 〈◊〉 Common-Prayer My Wife was of my mind for the Matter but greatly offended with me for seeming to do it for the avoiding of danger and was so far from not pardoning these false smart accusations that she never once blamed the good woman but loved her tendered her and relieved her in sickness to the death but hardly forgave me and yet drew me from all other places if the Ministers were not of my mind by prudent diversity Much less did her sufferings from the times distemper her She hath blamed me for naming in print my Losses Imprisonment and other sufferings by the Bishops as being over selfish queralousness when I should rather with wonder be thankful for the great mercy we yet enjoyed Though I think I never mentioned them as over-sensible of the sufferings but as a necessary evincing of the nature of the cause and as part of the necessary history or matter of fact in order to decide it She as much disliked the silencing of the Ministers as any but she did not love to hear it much complained of save as the publick loss nor to hear Conformists talkt against as a Party nor the faults of the conscientious sort of them aggravated in a siding factious manner But 1. she was prone to over-love her Relations and those good people poor as much as rich whom she thought most upright The love was good but the degree was too passionate 2. She over-earnestly desired their spiritual welfare If these whom she over-loved had not been as good and done as well as she would have them in innocent behaviour in piety and if rich in liberality it over-troubled her and she could not bear it 3. She was apt when she set her mind and heart upon some good work which she counted great or the welfare of some dear Friend to be too much pleased in her expectations and self-made promises of the success and then almost overturned with trouble when they disappointed her And she too impatiently bore unkindnesses from the friends that were most dear to her or whom she had much obliged Her will was set upon good but her weakness could not bear the crossing or frustration of it § 12. But the great infirmity which tyrannized over her was a diseased fearfulness against which she had little more free will or power than a man in an Ague or Frost against shaking cold Her nature was prone to it and I said before abundance of sad accidents made that and trouble of mind her malady Besides as she said four times in danger of death 2. And the storming of her Mothers house by Soldiers firing part killing plundering and threatning the rest 3. The awakenings of her conversion 4. The sentence of death by sickness presently before her peace was setled 5. The fire next her Lodgings in Sweetings-Alley 6. The burning of a Merchant his Wife and Family in Lothbury overagainst her Brother Vpton's door 7. The common terror and confusion at Dunstans Church in Fleet-street when they thought the Church was falling on their heads while I was preaching and the people cast themselves down from the Galleries 8. Her Mothers death 9. The friendless state she thought she was then left in 10. The great Plague 11. The Burning of London 12. The crack and danger of her Chamber in Aldersgate street 13. The crack and confusion at St. Iameses Market-house 14. The many Fires and talk of firing since 15. The common rumours of Murderings and Massacres 16. The death and dangers of many of her friends and my own illness More than all these concurred to make fear and aptness to be troubled to be her disease so that she much dreamed of fire and murderers and her own dreams workt half as dangerously on her as realities so that she could not bear the clapping of a door or any thing that had suddenness noise or fierceness in it But all this was more the malady of her body than of her soul and I accounted had little moral guilt and I took it for an evidence of the power of grace that so timerous a person 1. had overcome most of her fears of Hell and Gods desertion 2. And was more fearless of persecution imprisonment or losses and poverty thereby than I or any that I remember to have known § 13. And though her spirits were so quick and she so apt to be troubled at mens sin whom she much loved she greatly differed from me in her bearing with them and carriage towards them My temper and judgment much led me to use my dependents servants and friends according to the rules of Church-discipline and if they heard not loving private admonitions once twice and thrice to speak to them more sharply and then before others and to turn them off if yet they would not amend But her way was to oblige them by all the love kindness and bounty that she was able and to bear with them year after year while there was hope and at last not to desert them but still use them so as she though was likest at least to keep them in a state of hope from the badness which displicency might cause I could not have born with a Son I think as she could do where her kindness was at her own choice and yet she more disliked the least fault than I did and was more desirous of their greatest innocency and exactness § 14. Indeed she was so much for calmness deliberation and doing nothing rashly and in haste and my condition and business as well as temper made me do and speak much so suddenly that she principally differed from me and blamed me in this every considerable case and business she would have me take time to think much of before I did it or speak or resolved of any thing I knew the counsel was good for one that could stay but not for one that must ride Post I thought still I had but a little time to live I thought some considerable work still called for haste I have these Forty years been sensible of the sin of losing time I could not spare an hour I thought I could understand the matters in question as well at a few thoughts as in many days and yet she that had less work and more leisure but a far quicker apprehension than mine was all for staying to consider and against haste and ea●gerness in almost every thing and notwithstanding her over quick and feeling temper was all for mildness calmness gentleness pleasingness and serenity § 15. She had an earnest desire of the conversion and salvation of her servants and was greatly troubled that so many of them though tollerable in their work went away ignorant or strange to true