I7O LIFE OF RICHARD BAXTER. I thanked him for his great civility and favor. But I saw how far that sort of men were to be trusted. "* While these things were done, Baxter preached in various churches of the metropolisas hehad opportunity. About one year after his leaving Kidderminster, he accepted a lectureship. at St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet Street, where Dr. Bateswas pastor, and preached there statedly in the afternoon ofevery Lord's day, receiv- ing some smallcompensation from the people. "Seeingwhich way things were going, he, for his better security, applied to Bishop Sheldon, for his license to 'preach in his diocese. Some were of- fended at'his taking this step ; but he went to him as the king'soffi- cer. The bishop, received himwith abundance of respect, butof- feredhim the book to subscribe in. He pleaded theking's decla- ration as exempting from a necessity of subscribing. The bishop bid him therefore write what he would. Whereupon, he subscrib- ed a promise, in Latin, not to preach against the doctrine of the church or the ceremonies in his diocese as long as he used his license. Upon which he freely gave him his license, and would let his secretary take no money of him. And yet he could scarce preach a sermon but- he was informed from some quarter or other, that he preached sedition, and reflected on the government. "t He says himself, " I scarce think that I ever preached a sermon with' out a spy to give them his report of it." Sometimes he preached explicitly " against faction, schism, seditionand rebellion, and those sermons also" he says, "were reported to be factious and sedi- tious." Several discourses against which such charges were prefer- red, he felt himselfconstrained to publish in self-defence. ' The book thus produced is entitled "The Vain-Religion of the Formal Hypocrite." Speakingof his ministry at St. Dunstan's, he says, "The con- gregation being crowded, was that which provoked envy to accuse me; and one day the crowd did drive me from my place. It 'fell out that at Dunstan's church, in the midst of sermon, a little lime and dust, and perhaps a piece of a brick or two, fell down in the steeple or belfry near the boys; which put the whole congregation into sudden melancholy, so that they thought-thesteeple andchurch were falling ; which put them all into so confused a haste to get away, that indeed the noise -of their feet in the .galleries sounded like the falling of the stones. The people crowded- out of doors; the women left some of them a scarf, and some a shoebehind them, and some in the galleries cast themselves down upon those below, because they could not get down the stairs. I sat still down in Narra.tive, Part II. pp. 300, 301. t Calemy's Abridgment, pp. 576, 577.
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