He remained there for eight years, and was presented by Joseph Langton to the private living of Newton St. Loe in Somerset.
In 1730 Bedford attacked the stage by in a sermon at St. Botolph's, Aldgate, against the newly erected playhouse in Goodman's Fields; Odell was the proprietor, and the theatre, demolished in 1746, was associated with the career of David Garrick.
[1] Bedford joined Jeremy Collier and other pamphleteers in their crusade against the stage, and issued a series of tracts, of which one became notorious: A Serious Remonstrance in behalf of the Christian Religion against the Horrid Blasphemies and Impieties which are still used in the English Playhouses (1719).
This work cited a number of scripture texts travestied, and 7,000 "immoral sentiments" collected from English dramatists, especially those of the previous four years.
He held back on hearing that Isaac Newton promised a work on the same subject, and then publishing in 1728 Animadversions on Sir I. Newton's book entitled "The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms amended,", in reply to The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms.
Another production was the Horæ Mathematicæ Vacuæ, a treatise on Golden and Ecliptic Numbers (1743), written as a pastime during an attack of sciatica; the manuscript of this work was preserved in Sion College Library.