Shimei Bradbury.
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:
“You tell me that I rival it with David, whether he or I be the
sweet psalmist of Israel. I abhor the thought; while yet, at
the same time, I am fully persuaded that the Jewish psalm-book
was never designed to be the only psalter for the Christian
Church; and though we may borrow many parts of the prayers of
Ezra, Job, and Daniel, as well as of David, yet if we take them
entire as they stand, and join nothing of the Gospel with them,
I think there are few of them will be found proper prayers for
a Christian Church; and yet, I think, it would be very unjust
to say ‘we rival it with Ezra, Job, etc.’ Surely their prayers
are not best for us, since we are commanded to ask everything
in the name of Christ. Now, I know no reason why the glorious
discoveries of the New Testament should not be mingled with our
songs and praises, as well as with our prayers. I give solemn
thanks to my Saviour, with all my soul, that He hath honoured
me so far as to bring His name and Gospel in a more evident and
express manner into Christian psalmody.
“And since I find you have been pleased to make my hymns and
imitations of the Psalms, together with their prefaces, the
object of your frequent and harsh censures, give me leave
to ask you whether I did not consult with you while I was
translating the Psalms in this manner, fourteen or fifteen
years ago? Whether I was not encouraged by you in this work,
even when you fully knew my design, by what I had printed, as
well as by conversation? Did you not send me a note, under
your own hand, by my brother, with a request that I would form
the fiftieth and the hundred and twenty-second Psalms into
their proper old metre? And in that note you told me too that
one was six lines of heroic verse, or ten syllables, and the
other six lines of shorter metre; by following those directions
precisely, I confess I committed a mistake in both of them,
or at least in the last; nor had I ever thought of putting in
those metres, nor considered the number of the lines, nor the
measure of them, but by your direction, and at your request. I
allow, sir, with great freedom, that you may have changed your
opinion since, and you have a right to do it without the least
blame from me; but I do declare it, that at that time you were
one of my encouragers, and therefore your present censures
should be lighter and softer.
“You desire me at the end ‘to remember former friendships,’ but
you will give me leave to ask which of us has forgot them most;
and I am well assured that I have more effectually proved
myself all that which you are pleased to subscribe, viz., your
steady, hearty, and real friend, your obedient and devoted
servant,
“I. WATTS.”
And the following letter is a very fair illustration of the temper and
spirit of Watts’ replies to his censorious and abusive brother:
“LIME STREET, _Nov. 1, 1725_.
“REVEREND SIR,
“On Friday night last my worthy friend and neighbour, Mr. Caleb
Wroe, called on me at Theobalds, and desired me to convey the
enclosed paper to you, with his humble thanks for the share you
have given him in the late legacy intrusted with you, and he
intreats that you would please to pay the money into the hands
of this messenger, that I may return it to him; and I cannot
but join my unfeigned thanks with his, that you are pleased to
remember so valuable and pious a man in your distributions,
whose circumstances are by no means above the receipt of such
charitable bequests, though his modesty is so great as to
prevent him from sueing for an interest in them.
“But while I am acknowledging your unexpected goodness to my
friend, permit me, sir, to inquire into the reason of your
unexpected conduct towards myself in so different a manner. It
is true I live much in the country, but I am not unacquainted
with what passes in town. I would now look no further backward
than your letter to the Board at Lime Street, about six months
ago, where I was present. I cannot imagine, sir, what occasion
I had given to such sort of censures as you pass upon me there
among others, which you are pleased to cast upon our worthy
brethren; nor can I think how a more pious and Christian return
could have been made by that Board at that time than to vote
a silence and burial of all past contests, and even of this
last letter of yours, and to desire your company amongst us as
in times past. I had designed, sir, to have never taken any
further notice of this letter, if I had not been abundantly
informed that your conduct since is of the same kind, and
that you have persisted in your public reflections on many of
my writings in such a manner as makes it sufficiently appear
that you design reproach to the man, as much as to show your
zeal against his supposed errors. The particular instances
of this kind I need not rehearse to you; yourself are best
acquainted with them. And yet, after all this, I had been
silent still; but as I acknowledge God and seek Him in all my
ways, so I am convinced it is my duty to give you a private
admonition, and, as a brother, I intreat you to consider
whether all this wrath of man can work the righteousness of
God? Let me intreat you, sir, to ask yourself what degrees of
passion and personal resentment may join and mingle themselves
with your supposed zeal for the Gospel? Jesus, the searcher
of hearts, He knows with what daily labour and study, and
with what constant addresses to the throne of grace, I seek
to support the doctrine of His Deity as well as you, and to
defend it in the best manner I am capable of. And shall I tell
you also, sir, that it was your urgent request, among many
others, that engaged me so much further in this study than I
at first intended. If I am fallen into mistakes, your private
and friendly notice had done much more toward the correction of
them than public reproaches. I am not conscious to myself that
either my former or latter conduct towards you has merited such
indignities as these; nor can I think that our blessed Lord,
who has given you so rich a furniture of imagination, and
such sprightly talents for public service, will approve such
employment of them in the personal disgrace of your brethren
that own the same faith, that preach the same Saviour, and
attempt to spread abroad the same doctrines of salvation.
“I wish, sir, it were but possible for you to look upon your
own conduct, abstracted from that fondness which we all
naturally bear to self, and see whether there be no occasion
for some humbling and penitent thoughts in the sight of God. It
is not the design of this writing to carry on a quarrel with
you. It has been my frequent prayer, and it will be my joy,
to see your temper suited to your work, and to hear that you
employ your studies and your style for the support of truth and
godliness in the spirit of the Gospel, that is, in the spirit
of meekness and love. And I conclude with a hearty request
to Heaven that your wit may be all sanctified, that you may
minister holy things with honour and purity and great success,
and you may become as eminent and public an example of piety,
meekness, heavenly-mindedness, and love to all the saints, as
your own soul wishes and desires. Farewell, sir, and forgive
this freedom of your humble servant and fellow labourer in the
Gospel of Christ,
“I. WATTS.”
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.”
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