When Baxter preached that alarming and heart-stirring discourse at St. Lawrence Jewry which is entitled "Making light of Christ," the crowd was so great, that Lord Broghill, and the Earl of Suffolk, who brought the preacher to church in his coach, were "fain to go home again, because they could not come within hearing," and the crowd shewed so little respect to persons, that the old Earl of Warwick had to sit in the lobby; and Baxter adds--"Mr. Vines (the incumbent) himself, was fain to get into the pulpit and sit behind me, and I stood between his legs." "The Sermon on Judgment," published in "Baxter's Works"--another characteristic specimen of his mode of exposition and appeal--was delivered at the request of Sir Christopher Pack, Lord Mayor of London, in the old Gothic cathedral of St. Paul;[187] and the preacher tells us he delivered it to the "greatest auditory he ever saw." We find him also in the pulpit of Westminster Abbey, addressing immense congregations. Baxter once, and only once, preached before Cromwell, when he chose for his subject the divisions and distractions of Christendom. He shewed how mischievous a thing it was for politicians to encourage divisions for their own ends, and to fish in troubled waters, thus keeping the Church in a state of weakness, and pointed out, at the end of his discourse, the necessity and the means of union. The preacher heard that his plain speaking had displeased his audience; yet, to use his own expression, "they put up with it." But Cromwell sent for Baxter, and began a long and tedious speech respecting God's Providence in the change of governments, and how He had owned that change already, and what great things had been achieved in consequence of it both at home and abroad. Baxter, wearied out of all patience, at length observed, that he took our ancient monarchy to be a great blessing, and craved pardon, as he asked his Highness in what way England had forfeited that blessing. Awakened into passion by this home thrust, Cromwell replied, that it was no forfeiture at all, but a "Divine dispensation;" and then he "let fly" at the Parliament, especially at four or five members who were Baxter's particular friends. A few days afterwards, the Protector addressed to the impatient preacher another slow and tedious speech upon liberty of conscience; and the preacher returned to the Protector a paper containing his own views upon the same subject. Baxter's paper would be to Cromwell as tiresome as Cromwell's talk could be to Baxter. Yet the whole of this remarkable intercourse between two remarkable men shewed the courage of the one, and the magnanimity of the other, and the perfect sincerity of both. [Sidenote: _Baxter's Popularity._]