A Grief Sanctified: Through Sorrow to Eternal Hope
Overview
In his timeless memoir of his wife’s life and death, prolific author and Puritan theologian Richard Baxter describes a love story, not of fairy tales, but of faithfulness from beginning to end. After losing his wife of 19 years, Baxter sought consolation and relief in Scripture and writing. Within days, he produced a poignant lover’s tribute that has become a classic memoir.
In A Grief Sanctified, Packer has added his own astute reflections along with his edited version of Baxter’s memoir. Packer guides you through six of life’s realities — love, faith, death, grief, hope, and patience — comparing and contrasting the world’s ideals with those of the Bible. The powerful combination of Packer’s insights and Baxter’s grief provides a beacon in the often dark realm of grief.
Save on this book and more from J.I. Packer with Crossway J.I. Packer Collection (10 vols.).
- Features an introspective memoir on grief from Richard Baxter
- Addresses contemporary, spiritual issues through a biblical lens
- Prologue: To the Reader
- Great Gladness: Margaret with Richard
- Two Puritans
- Great Goodness: Richard Recalls Margaret
- Of Her Parentage and the Occasion of Our Acquaintance
- Of Her Conversion, Sickness, and Recovery
- Of the Workings of Her Soul In and After This Sickness
- Some Parcels of Counsel for Her Deliverance from This Distressed Case, Which I Find Reserved by Her for Her Use
- Her Temper, Occasioning These Troubles of Mind
- Of Our Marriage and Our Habitations
- Of Her Exceeding Desires to Do Good
- Of Her Mental Qualifications and Her Infirmities
- Of Her Bodily Infirmities and Her Death
- Some Uses Proposed to the Reader from This History, as the Reasons Why I Wrote It
- Appendix: Two Poems from Poetical Fragments (1861)
- Great Sadness: Richard Without Margaret
- The Grieving Process
- Epilogue: To the Reader, Once More
Top Highlights
“Bereavement, we said—meaning the loss through death of someone we loved—brings grief in its most acute and most disabling form, and coping with such grief is always a struggle. Bereavement becomes a supreme test of the quality of our faith. Faith, as the divine gift of trust in the triune Creator-Redeemer, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and so as a habit implanted in the Christian heart, is meant to act as our gyroscopic compass throughout life’s voyage and our stabilizer in life’s storms.” (Page 10)
“Grief at the loss of a loved one is as old as the human race. Everyone who loves will experience it sooner or later, and the greater the love, the greater the grief when the time of loss arrives.” (Page 143)
“Puritanism of history was not the barbarous, sourpuss mentality of time-honored caricature, still less the heretical Manicheism (denial of the goodness and worth of created things and everyday pleasures) with which some scholars have identified it. It was, rather, a holistic renewal movement within English-speaking Protestantism that aimed to bring all life—personal, ecclesiastical, political, social, commercial, family life, business life, professional life—under the didactic authority and the purging and regenerating power of God in the Gospel to the fullest extent possible.” (Page 19)
“The loneliness of grief is one of the worst and most draining things about it—and, be it said, one of the most dangerous, too.” (Page 145)
“bereavement shakes unbelievers and believers alike to the foundations of their being” (Page 10)
- Title: A Grief Sanctified: Through Sorrow to Eternal Hope: Including Richard Baxter’s Timeless Memoir of His Wife’s Life and Death
- Author: J. I. Packer
- Publisher: Crossway
- Print Publication Date: 2002
- Logos Release Date: 2014
- Pages: 192
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Baxter, Margaret Charlton, 1636-1681; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691 › Breviate of the life of Margaret, daughter of Francis Charlton … and wife of Richard Baxter; Dissenters, Religious › England--Biography
- Resource ID: LLS:GRIEFSANCTIFIED
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-02-17T16:10:48Z
J. I. Packer (1926–2020) is regarded as one of the most influential evangelicals in North America. He was Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and his writings include books such as Knowing God, A Quest for Godliness, Growing in Christ (Crossway) and Rediscovering Holiness. He preached and lectured widely in Great Britain and North America and served as general editor of the English Standard Version of the Bible published in 2001, and theological editor of the Study Bible version. In 2014, Packer was named Author of the Year by the Association of Logos Bookstores. He was a frequent contributor to and an executive editor of Christianity Today and wrote numerous articles published in journals such as Churchman, SouthWestern Journal, Reformation Revival Journal and Touchstone. He received a BA, MA and PhD from Oxford University.