Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/163

 Bασιλικὴ; a sermon [Hos. vii. 7] preached 29 May, with Appendix of papers relating to the Restoration, 1660, and the present settlement,’ 1715, 8vo; ‘Non-resistance without Priestcraft’ [Rom. xiii. 2], 1715, 8vo (5 Nov.); ‘The Establishment of the Kingdom in the hand of Solomon, applied to the Revolution and the Reign of King George’ [1 K. ii. 46], 1716, 8vo (5 Nov.); ‘The Divine Right of Kings inquired into’ [Prov. viii. 15], 1718, 8vo; ‘The Primitive Tories; or … Persecution, Rebellion, and Priestcraft’ [Jude 11], 1718, 8vo (four editions). Bradbury boasted of being the first to proclaim George I, which he did on Sunday, 1 Aug. 1714, being apprised, while in his pulpit, of the death of Anne by the concerted signal of a handkerchief. The report was current that he preached from 2 K. ix. 34, ‘Go, see now this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king's daughter;’ but perhaps he only quoted the text in conversation. Another story is to the effect that when, on 24 Sept., the dissenting ministers went in their black gowns with an address to the new king, a courtier asked, ‘Pray, sir, is this a funeral?’ On which Bradbury replied, ‘Yes, sir, it is the funeral of the Schism Act, and the resurrection of liberty.’ Robert Winter, D.D., Bradbury's descendant, is responsible for the statement that there had been a plot to assassinate him, and that the spy who was sent to Fetter Lane was converted by Bradbury's preaching. On the other hand it is said that Harley had offered to stop his mouth with a bishopric. Bradbury's political harangues were sometimes too violent for men of his own party. Defoe wrote ‘A Friendly Epistle by way of reproof from one of the people called Quakers, to T. B., a dealer in many words,’ 1715, 8vo (two editions in same year). With the reference of the Exeter controversy to the judgment of the dissenting ministers of London, a large part of Bradbury's vehemence passed from the sphere of politics to that of theology. The origin of the dispute belongs to the life of James Peirce (1674–1726), the leader of dissent against Wells and Nicholls. Peirce, the minister of James's Meeting, Exeter, was accused, along with others, of favouring Arianism. The Western Assembly was disposed to salve the matter over by admitting the orthodoxy of the declarations of faith made by the parties in September 1718. But the body of thirteen trustees who held the property of the four Exeter meeting-houses appealed to London for further advice. After much negotiation the whole body of London dissenting ministers of the three denominations was convened at Salters' Hall to consider a draft letter of advice to Exeter. Bradbury put himself in the front of the conservative party; the real mover on the opposite side was the whig politician John Shute Barrington, viscount Barrington, a member of Bradbury's congregation, and afterwards the Papinian of Lardner's letter on the Logos. The conference met on Thursday, 19 Feb. 1719 (the day after the royal assent to the repeal of the Schism Act), when Bradbury proposed that, after days of fasting and prayer, a deputation should be sent to Exeter to offer advice on the spot; this was negatived. At the second meeting, Tuesday, 24 Feb., Bradbury moved a preamble to the letter of advice, embodying a declaration of the orthodoxy of the conference, in words taken from the Assembly's catechism. This was rejected by fifty-seven to fifty-three. Sir Joseph Jekyll, master of the rolls, who witnessed the scene, is author of the often-quoted saying, ‘The Bible carried it by four.’ At the third meeting, 3 March, the proposition was renewed, but the moderator, Joshua Oldfield, would not take a second vote. Over sixty ministers went up into the gallery and subscribed a declaration of adherence to the first Anglican article, and the fifth and sixth answers of the Assembly's catechism. They then left the place amid hisses, Bradbury characteristically exclaiming, ‘'Tis the voice of the serpent, and may be expected against a zeal for the seed of the woman.’ Thus perished the good accord of English dissent. Principal Chalmers, of King's College, Old Aberdeen, who was present at the third meeting, and in strong sympathy with Bradbury's side, reported to Calamy that ‘he never saw nor heard of such strange conduct and management before.’ The nonsubscribing majority, to the number of seventy-three, met again at Salters' Hall on 10 March, and agreed upon their advice, which was sent to Exeter on 17 March. Bradbury and his subscribers (61, 63, or 69) met separately on 9 March, and sent off their advice on 7 April. The remarkable thing is that the two advices (bating the preamble) are in substance and almost in terms identical; and the letter accompanying the nonsubscribers' advice not only disowns Arianism, but declares their ‘sincere belief in the doctrine of the blessed Trinity and the proper divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, which they apprehend to be clearly revealed in the Holy Scriptures.’ Both advices preach peace and charity, while owning the duty of congregations to withdraw from ministers who teach what they deem to be serious error. Neither was in time to do good or harm, for the Exeter trustees had taken the matter into their own hands by formally excluding Peirce and his colleague from all the meeting-houses.