In a new
And more beautiful edition,
Corrected and amended
by
The Author.
That this well-known typographical inscription was plagiarized from Mather’s Magnalia Christi Americana, is evident from Franklin’s own admission of his familiarity with the works of “the great Cotton.” To the perusal in early life of Mather’s excellent volume, Essays to do Good, published in 1710, Franklin ascribed all his “usefulness in the world.” The lines alluded to in the famous Ecclesiastical History are by Benjamin Woodbridge, a member of the first graduating class of Harvard University, 1642:—
A living, breathing Bible; tables where
Both Covenants at large engraven were.
Gospel and law, in ’s heart, had each its column;
His head an index to the sacred volume;