There was living in London contemporary with Watts one of those ungentle, unbeautiful spirits, from whose malignant jealousy few men of eminence entirely escape; he appears to have been to Watts what Alexander the coppersmith was to Paul, he did him much evil and sought to do more. Bradbury was one of the most vehement and virulent spirits of the times, he was infected with the prevalent spirit of railing long before he began to cast about his Shimei and Rabshakeh pleasantries upon Watts; he was well known for his capabilities in this way, and in 1715 Daniel Defoe reproved him in a pamphlet entitled, “A Friendly Epistle by way of Reproof, from one of the people called Quakers to Thomas Bradbury, a dealer in many words.” The following paragraph illustrates the character of the man the pamphlet is intended to represent: “Men, especially, Thomas, preaching men, as thou art, ought much rather to move their people and their brethren to forbear and forgive one another, than to move and excite them to severities, and to executing revenge upon one another, lest the day come when that which they call justice may be deemed injustice. I counsel thee, therefore, that thou forbear to excite thy sons of Belial to do wickedly, but rather that thou preach to them that they repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand; which I meekly advertise thee is the proper duty of thy employment, whereas the other is the work of darkness and tendeth to blood.”

Again, he says: “I must lead thee by the hand, not by the nose, Thomas—others have done thee that office already—that thou mayst be convinced, yea, even confounded, for those whom thou hast, with so great confidence, taken on thee to recommend as good men, and men fearing God. I do thee justice, Thomas, and therefore observe in thy behalf that thy modesty would not permit thee to say, ‘They were men hating covetousness.’”[31]

Bradbury was one of those men who, pursuing politics in the pulpit with vehement and intolerant pertinacity, degrade the standard of the minister of the Gospel; he was even charged with desiring the blood of the ministers of Queen Anne in the pamphlets of the day, especially in “Burnet and Bradbury; or, the Confederacy of the Press and the Pulpit for the Blood of the last Ministry.”[32]

A life of Watts would be quite incomplete which did not give some account of his very eminent but now almost forgotten assailant and enemy, Thomas Bradbury. Born at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, he had all the characteristics of a typical Yorkshireman; he was a bold and hearty, and possibly, whatever that may be worth, well-meaning man; he possessed a considerable amount of natural genius, especially for doubtful drollery and expletive. It is a wonder that his name has not found a record in such histories as Macaulay’s and Stanhope’s, for it has a semi-historical interest. He was probably the most representative political Nonconformist among the ministers in the City of London of his day, and a well-known anecdote tells that he was the first to proclaim, as he did from his pulpit, the accession of George I. to the throne. It is said that he was walking through Smithfield in a very pensive and thoughtful mood on Sunday, August 1st, 1714, when the great “Schism Bill” was about to take effect, when Bishop Burnet happened to pass in his carriage; the Bishop called to his friend, and inquired into the cause of his great thoughtfulness. “I am thinking,” replied Bradbury, “whether I shall have the constancy and courage of the noble army of martyrs whose ashes are deposited in this place, for I most assuredly expect to see similar times of violence and persecution, and that I shall be caused to suffer in a like cause.”

The Bishop was himself equally zealous with Bradbury for the cause of Protestantism; he told him that the Queen was very ill, that she was given over by her physicians, who expected every hour to be her last; and he further said, that he was even then on his way to the Palace to inquire the particulars, and that he would despatch a messenger to Mr. Bradbury with the earliest intelligence of the Queen’s death, and that if he should be in the pulpit when the messenger arrived, he should drop a handkerchief from the gallery as a token of that event. The messenger employed was Mr. John Bradbury, a brother of the preacher, and one in the medical profession. The Queen died while Bradbury was preaching, and the intelligence was conveyed to him by the signal agreed upon; perhaps the preacher may be forgiven if his heart was filled with joy; he indeed suppressed his feelings during the sermon, but in his prayer gave thanks to God who had again delivered the nation from the power of evil counsels, and implored a Divine blessing upon his majesty King George and the House of Hanover. He always gloried in being the first who proclaimed King George the First.

This anecdote gives a fair idea of the character of the man; one more utterly unlike Isaac Watts it is impossible to conceive; he was a man whose learning was limited, he had neither taste nor capacity for those refined subtleties either of argument or imagination into which Watts was forced by the necessities of controversy in his times; also, Bradbury was a rugged, rough-and-ready speaker and thinker, possessed of a dangerous prompt wit, not always free from a coarse disregard of the feelings of others; nor can we fail to see that there mingled, perhaps unconsciously to himself, a considerable amount of jealousy of his more eminent and illustrious brother. Before Watts had received his invitation to become the co-pastor or successor of Dr. Chauncy, the congregation had heard Mr. Bradbury; it is easily understood that the courtly, polished, and perhaps fastidious people would scarcely appreciate an eloquence like that of “bold Bradbury”—a term by which Queen Anne designated him. Then, at the first signal of his hostility to Watts, one of his own most distinguished people, Watts’ friend, Lord Barrington, forsook him; it was perhaps not likely to improve his temper, and Watts, although exceedingly firm in his own convictions, as he had not the strength so neither had he the disposition for any vehement political action, and if he stepped aside slightly to use his influence in political partisanship, it was unfortunately not to aid the particular persons espoused by Bradbury. And so it was that in the sermons of this free-spoken man there are handed down to us perhaps the most harsh and unjust words which ever assailed the ministry of Isaac Watts. It was at a later period of life, when Watts was very infirm, that, at a meeting of the ministers in the Redcross Street Library, he rose to propose some resolution, and, with his weakly constitution and feeble voice, he found considerable difficulty in making himself heard, when Bradbury called out to him in the meeting, “Brother Watts, shall I speak for you?” The quiet little Doctor turned to him and said, “Why, Brother Bradbury, you have often spoken against me.” At first he had encouraged the idea of Watts’ publication of his Paraphrase of the Psalms and of his Hymns, but when they came forth, although they proved so acceptable to congregations in general, he continued to use the dull version of Dr. Patrick until his dying day in his own place, New-court Chapel, and prevented their introduction into the service at Pinners’ Hall. There, however, on one occasion the clerk happened unluckily to give out one of Watts’ pieces; up rose Bradbury immediately, exclaiming, “Let us have none of Watts’ (w)hims.”

In all this, and in other such instances, a faithful biographer must see the traces of a good deal of mere jealousy. It is quite an exceptional instance in the life of Watts, and it must seem singular that so sweet and gentle a nature should have suffered from the misrepresentations of any, and Bradbury has perhaps, even in his grave, been the most abiding enemy to Watts’ reputation. It seems scarcely probable that the Unitarians could have so audaciously claimed our writer as their own, had not Bradbury set them a wicked example in his sermons. One of the most affecting and earnest passages in the correspondence of Watts is his remonstrance with his unjust brother against unseemly attacks upon him, and misrepresentations of his opinions. Watts, so far as we can see, was never either discourteous or unjust; but he bitterly felt it that while, by his hymns and his treatises, he was attempting to shake the ground of the Arian heresy, his name was, from the pulpit and the pen, covered with obloquy as injuring and shaking the foundations of the most exalted faith in Christ. Bradbury was not concerned to reply to arguments, but in a right-down vehement manner to denounce those from whom he differed. He was no metaphysician. Turning over the many volumes of his sermons, we find them all characterized by strong evangelical statement, a very happy arrangement of thoughts, and great lucidity and apt readiness of expression. He never passed beyond the sense or culture of an ordinary audience; it must also be said that he never put the bridle on his wit. He was a man who could never find himself in the wrong, and who must always have the last word, and that word a disagreeable one. In a most extraordinary manner he could write and say the most abusive and bitter things, and seem quite surprised that the person to whom they were addressed did not take them as expressions of kindness. He tells Watts that he is “profane, conceited, impudent, and pragmatical;” he says: “You are mistaken if you think I ever knew, and much less admired, your mangling, garbling, transforming, etc., so many of your Songs of Zion; your notions about psalmody, and your satirical flourishes in which you express them, are fitter for one who pays no regard to inspiration, than for a Gospel minister, as I may hereafter show in a more public way.” And when Watts mildly demurred to this as a personal reflection, he says, in reply: “Should any one take the liberty of burlesquing your poetry, as you have done that of the Most High God, you might call it personal reflection indeed; when I consider that most of those expressions are adopted either by the New Testament or the evangelical prophets, I tremble at your mowing them together, as you were resolved to make the Songs of Zion ridiculous.” Again he says: “Do you think that the ministers of London are to stand still while you tear in pieces eight great Articles of their faith? And must every one who answers your arguments be accused of personal reflections?” Such is the vein in which this noisy man writes. Watts replies in a spirit of singular meekness; Bradbury, while indulging in the coarsest invective, professes a large amount of respect and honour, and Watts says: “I am always ready to acknowledge whatsoever personal respect Mr. Bradbury has conceived for one of so little merit as I can pretend to; but I know not how to reconcile the profession of so much respect with so many and so severe censures, and with such angry modes of expression, as you have been pleased to use both in print and in writing.” Vindicating himself for attempting to set the Psalms of David to the service of song, he says:

And the following letter is a very fair illustration of the temper and spirit of Watts’ replies to his censorious and abusive brother:

It is very satisfactory, however, throughout the correspondence to feel that Watts, the only one of the two names in which we now feel much interest, preserves a spirit of quietness and candour; the correspondence was forced upon him by the noisy Bradbury, and as he commenced it so he was determined to have the last of it. Watts had quietly implored him to silence, saying: “Let us examine what is past, and take care for the time to come what we write or print with regard to our brethren be expressed in such language as may dare appear and be read by the light of the last conflagration, and the splendour of the tribunal of our returning Lord.” This produced a tempest of a letter, in which Bradbury says: “I learn no such passive obedience to an unreasonable adversary, but rather the contrary; you should have left off contention before it was meddled with, for I doubt not to open to the world your shame.”

The correspondence is very lengthy; it is not probable that it will ever be reprinted; it is not worth the patience of perusal, unless to add to the esteem of the subject of these memoirs. Bradbury’s turbulent nature in the course of it seems to be utterly ungoverned, and raves along in a manner quite fatal to any respect with which a desire to think well of the man might possess the reader’s mind. It had perhaps been better if the wave of this correspondence had, like most of Watts’ letters, been lost to the eye, but, by some fatality, it is the only complete piece of correspondence in our author’s life published. Walter Wilson remarks upon it that “the letters are of that personal nature as do but little credit to the writers.” This is very unjust; if Mr. Wilson had read, he must have known that there is not one word in the letters of Watts which does not reflect the quiet holiness of a spirit at perfect peace with itself, only desirous of healing the heart of his antagonist. Bradbury even censures him because, after his attacks on Watts in print, he did not reply in print, but referred to them in private letters to him! Watts had expressed his desire in seeking the truth, and says:

“I acknowledge with respect and thankfulness the kind opinions you have entertained of me, and I really ‘value all the care you have shown not to grieve my spirit,’ whensoever I see it practised. I easily believe, indeed, that your natural talent of wit is richly sufficient to have taken occasions from an hundred passages in my writings to have filled your pages with much severer censures. In the vivacity of wit, in the copiousness of style, in readiness of Scripture phrases, and other useful talents, I freely own you for my superior, and will never pretend to become your rival. But it is only calm and sedate argument that weighs with me in matters of controversy, nor will I be displeased with any man for showing me my mistakes by force of argument, and in a spirit of meekness; it is only in this manner truth must be searched out, and not by wit and raillery.”

To this came back the following:

“Your profession of ‘seeking the truth’ is very popular, and I do not wonder to find it so often in all your writings; but then there is such a thing as ‘ever learning, and not being able to come to the knowledge of the truth.’ And it is pity, after you have been more than thirty years a teacher of others, you are yet to learn the first principles of the oracles of God. What will our hearers think of us when we succeed the greatest men of our last age in nothing else but their pulpits? Is there no certainty in the words of truth? Was Dr. Owen’s church to be taught another Jesus, that the Son and Holy Spirit were only two powers in the Divine nature? Shall the men who planted and watered so happy a part of the vineyard have all their labours rendered in vain? Shall a fountain in the same place send forth sweet water and bitter? What need is there of a charge?”[33]

On the whole, it is well to refer to this controversy. It is a painful, important item in Watts’ life, and brings out very clearly how singularly he was removed from irritable passions, and it sadly reveals how impossible it seems even for the most gentle natures to escape the venom and the vileness of the “perils of false brethren.”

Bradbury unquestionably was firmly attached to evangelical truth, so far as he knew it, and his discourses in the two volumes called “The Mystery of Godliness, Considered in Sixty-one Sermons,” are certainly interesting, suggestive, and even admirable specimens of preaching; but, we have said, he was chiefly known as a political preacher. His printed discourses contain few intimations of that wit which was a favourite weapon with him in the pulpit, and of which we have some indications in the sermon entitled “The Ass and the Serpent,” a comparison between the tribes of Issachar and Dan in their regard for civil liberty—a sermon, like all those in the volume which contains it, devoted to rousing the spirit of the times in which he lived. Regularly as the fifth of November came round, he commemorated the day in a sermon, and afterwards adjourned with his friends to dine at a tavern, where, it is said, he always sung the national song, “The Roast Beef of Old England;” there, no doubt, jest and joke passed round pretty freely, for, as we have intimated, he had a sprightly wit and a copious flow of eloquence. Watts gently remonstrated with him for these displays, to which he replied in his vehement and peppery style. George Whitefield, at a later period, more strongly remonstrated with him on his conduct in this particular, but not apparently with much effect. It is said that upon the death of Queen Anne, an incident to which we have already referred, he took for his text on the occasion of her funeral sermon, “Go, see now this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king’s daughter.” The story is exceedingly likely, for he belonged to a race of men not indisposed to misuse Scripture after that unbecoming fashion; and we may surely say, notwithstanding the ominous shadows which brooded over the closing years of a reign commenced with so much promise, the anecdote, even the possibility that it may be true, testifies to the cruel coarseness, the low profane jocularity, and ungrateful injustice of the man. He was a hearty politician, to whom all refinements of speech or sentiment were unknown, and, right or wrong, he plunged on in a reckless kind of fashion. He adopted as his motto, Pro Christo et patriâ, For Christ and my country. Charity may be permitted to hope that he, at any rate, thought the motto did not unworthily represent the man, if sometimes in his conduct he seems somewhat unworthily to represent the motto. And while Watts was pursuing his studies in scholarly seclusion, never knowing the happiness of robust health, and, although a firm Nonconformist, on good terms with bishops and ministers of the Church of England, and ministers and members of many communions of Christians, Bradbury mixed with freedom with the moving parties in the City, and was ever ready to lift up his voice loudly about all the political circumstances of the passing hours. Thus the two men, although ministers of the same order, within a very short distance of each other, were in their sympathies wide apart; they desired, indeed, the same great ends, but the roads they took to their attainment were widely different. It is still singular and unaccountable, but for the personal motives we have assigned above, that Bradbury should have expressed himself with so much bitterness and hostility concerning his old friend, whose principles, neither in religion nor politics, could ever have been at any very great remove from his own; but so it is, that amidst the multitude of friends that honoured and esteemed Watts highly for his work’s sake, we find Bradbury standing aside like a very Shimei pouring upon him his perpetually reiterated torrent of contempt, obloquy, and scorn, and no motive appears but the dangerous one which influences three-fourths of all the evil and hatred in the world; jealousy of a rank for which he was unfit, and genius to which he could not attain. On the whole, it may be said of Bradbury, in the language of an old English poet, he was “like a pair of snuffers, he snips the filth in other men, and retains it in himself;” it could not be said of him “the snuffers were of pure gold.” As Archbishop Abbott says of Jonah, in his sermons on the prophet: “Some drams and grains of gold appear in him and his action, but dross is there by pounds; little wine, but store of water; some wheat, but chaff enough.”