Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/164

bury had his share in the ensuing pamphlet war, which was political as well as religious, for a schism in dissent was deprecated as inimical to the whig interest. He printed ‘An Answer to some Reproaches cast on those Dissenting Ministers who subscribed, &c.,’ 1719, 8vo; a sermon on ‘The Necessity of contending for Revealed Religion’ [Jude 3], 1720, 8vo (appended is a letter from Cotton Mather on the late disputes); and ‘A Letter to John Barrington Shute, Esq.,’ 1720, 8vo. Barrington left Bradbury's congregation, and joined that of Jeremiah Hunt, D.D., independent minister and nonsubscriber, at Pinners' Hall. Bradbury was brought to book by ‘a Dissenting Layman’ in ‘Christian Liberty asserted, in opposition to Protestant Popery,’ 1719, 8vo, a letter addressed to him by name, and answered by ‘a Gentleman of Exon,’ in ‘A Modest Apology for Mr. T. Bradbury,’ 1719, 8vo. But most of the pamphleteers passed him by as ‘an angry man, that makes some bustle among you’ (Letter of Advice to the Prot. Diss., 1720, 8vo) to aim at William Tong, Benjamin Robinson, Jeremiah Smith, and Thomas Reynolds, four presbyterian ministers who had issued a whip for the Salters' Hall conference in the subscribing interest, and who subsequently published a joint defence of the doctrine of the Trinity. In 1720 an attempt was made to oust Bradbury from the Pinners' Hall lectureship; in the same year he started an anti-Arian Wednesday lecture at Fetter Lane. This did not mend matters. There appeared ‘An Appeal to the Dissenting Ministers, occasioned by the Behaviour of Mr. Thomas Bradbury,’ 1722, 8vo; and Thomas Morgan (the ‘Moral Philosopher,’ 1737), who had made an unusually orthodox confession at his ordination [see Bowden, John] in 1716, but was now on his way to ‘Christian deism,’ wrote his ‘Absurdity of opposing Faith to Reason’ in reply to Bradbury's 5th of November sermon, 1722, on ‘The Nature of Faith.’ He had previously attacked Bradbury in a postscript to his ‘Nature and Consequences of Enthusiasm,’ 1719, 8vo. Returning to a former topic, Bradbury published in 1724, 8vo, ‘The Power of Christ over Plagues and Health,’ prefixing an account of the anti-Arian lectureship. He published also ‘The Mystery of Godliness considered,’ 1726, 8vo, 2 vols. (sixty-one sermons, reprinted Edin. 1795). In 1728 his position at Fetter Lane became uncomfortable; he left, taking with him his brother Peter, now his colleague, and most of his flock. The presbyterian meeting-house in New Court, Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, was vacant through the removal of James Wood (a subscriber) to the Weighhouse in 1727; Bradbury was asked, 20 Oct. 1728, to New Court, and accepted on condition that the congregation would take in the Fetter Lane seceders and join the independents. This arrangement, which has helped to create the false impression that at Salters' Hall the presbyterians and independents took opposite sides as denominations, was made 27 Nov. 1728, Peter continuing as his brother's colleague (he probably died about 1730, as Jacob Fowler succeeded him in 1731). Bradbury now published ‘Jesus Christ the Brightness of Glory,’ 1729, 8vo (four sermons on Heb. i. 3); and a tract ‘On the Repeal of the Test Acts,’ 1732, 8vo. His last publication seems to have been ‘Joy in Heaven and Justice on Earth,’ 1747, 8vo (two sermons), unless his discourses on baptism, whence Caleb Fleming drew ‘The Character of the Rev. Tho. Bradbury, taken from his own pen,’ 1749, 8vo, are later. Doubtless he was a most effective as well as a most unconventional preacher; the lampoon (about 1730) in the Blackmore papers may be accepted as evidence of his ‘melodious’ voice, his ‘head uplifted,’ and his ‘dancing hands.’ The stout Yorkshireman reached a great age. He died on Sunday, 9 Sept. 1759, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. His wife's name was Richmond; he left two daughters, one married (1744) to John Winter, brother to Richard Winter, who succeeded Bradbury, and father to Robert Winter, D.D., who succeeded Richard; the other daughter married (1768) George Welch, a banker. Besides the publications noticed above, Bradbury printed several funeral and other sermons, including two on the death of Robert Bragge (died 1738; ‘eternal Bragge’ of Lime Street, who preached for four months on Joseph's coat). His ‘Works,’ 1762, 8vo, 3 vols. (second edition 1772), consist of fifty-four sermons, mainly political.

[Memoir by John Brown, Berwick, 1831; Palmer's Nonconf. Memorial, 1802, ii. 367, and index; Thompson's MS. List of Academies (with Toulmin's and Kentish's additions) in Dr. Williams's Library; Hunter's Life of O. Heywood, 1842, p. 385; Christian Reformer, 1847, p. 399; Bogue and Bennet's Hist. of Dissenters, vol. iii. 1810, pp. 489 seq.; Mon. Repos. 1811, pp. 514, 722; Browne's Hist. of Congregationalism in Norf. and Suff., 1877, p. 242; James's Hist. Presb. Chapels and Charities, 1867, pp. 23 seq., 111 seq., 690, 705 seq.; Calamy's Hist. Account of my own Life, 2nd ed. 1830, ii. 403 sq.; Salmon's Chronol. Historian, 2nd ed. 1733, pp. 406–7; Chr. Moderator, 1826, pp. 193 seq.; Pamphlets of 1719 on the Salters' Hall Conference, esp. A True Relation, &c. (the subscribers' account), An Authentick Account, &c. (nonsubscribers'), An Impartial State, &c. (these give the main facts; the argumentative tracts are legion); Blackmore