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fact , " say * he , " beyond reasonable contradiction , that Luke here asserts , that Jesus was thought to be the son of Joseph , and was so in truth ; and thus by one single unequivocal
expression , he has set aside the story of his miraculous birth as false , and the two disputed chapters as a forgery of a subsequent period . " See Sequel , p . 241- Note .
Thus , Sir , I have laid before you the steps by which I have arrived at my present views , and hope they will be as satisfactory to your correspondent as they are to myself . I am , Sir , Yours , &c . JOHN MARSOM .
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78 Prior ' s Solomon .
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which Franklin translates , The happiest fate of man is not to be ; And next in bliss is he who soon as born , From the vain world and all its sorrows free , Shall whence he came with speediest foot return .
With which may be compared Potter ' s version : — Not to be born is Heav'n's first grace , If born , extinguished soon the Tital flame ; Back to return from whence it came , Is heav e n ' s next blessing to man's wretched race .
I am here reminded of a note in WakefiekTs Matthew , 4 to . p . 367 , on the Case of Judas ( xxv . 24 ) . That scriptural critic , who brought his various learning , as a glad offering to the Sanctuary of Religion , remarks on the expression had not been born ,
that it is " a proverbial sentence , meaning in general that this action would be attended by very calamitous consequences to the criminal . " He adds , citing a couplet from the Greek Epigrams , that " it is common for
unhappy people to wish that they had never been born ; " and subjoins from Maimonides ( Mor . Nev . i . 32 , JBuxtorf ) this Jewish sentence , "Whoever does not spare the glory of his Creator , it were better for him not to have come into the world /'
It is remarkable that Mr . Wakefield , who has here qualified the force of the phrase , had not been born , appears to have forgotten that at p . 361 , of the same work , ( on Matt . xxv . 46 ) he had taken it ; strictly as an
argument against the hypothesis of the final happiness of the wicked , " which he , with evident reluctance , concludes to be ** tmscriptural , because then , in no instance , can it be better for a man never to have been born : a
case , which the N . T . not only supposes , * but exemplifies "— uliquando bonus dormitat . Gilbert Wakefield ( of whom I had some knowledge ) had considered the divine attributes and the perfectability of man with too much attention to have easily become a consistent advocate for the dreary doctrine of human destruction R . B . ¦
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— > American Proclamation of a JFast-Day [ It is perhaps to be regretted that in any country , Religion should be associated with War . which is fteldctf *
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St . Ardleon , Oct . 30 , 1815 . Sir , THE following lines , in Prior ' s Solomon , ( B . iii . ) have , I believe , been much oftener admired than examined , as to the justness of the sentiments they express : —
Happy the mortal man , who now at last Has through this doleful vale of mis ' ry past , Who to his destin'd stage has carried on The tedious loud , and laid his burden down ; Whom the cut brass and wounded marble
shows Victor o ' er life and all her train of woes . He happier yet who privileg'd by fate To shorter labour and a lighter weight , Receiv ed but yesterday the gift of breath , Order ed to-morrow to return to death . But O ! beyond description happiest he , Who ne ' er must roll on life ' s tempestuous
sea 5 Who with blest freedom from the gene- " ^ ral doom / Exempt , must never force the teeming V womb , k Nor see the sun , nor sink into the tomb . J Who breathes must suffer , and who thiqks must mourn :
And he alone is blest who ne ' er was born . I am not aware that the Pagan origin of these lines has ever been conjectured . Prior appears to have had in his recollection not so much the passage in Ecclesiastes ( iv . % 3 ) as the following verse of Sophocles in his CEdi pus Coloneus : — M ^ cpvvai rov 8 / it < xvTOL vixa Xoyov ro b \ etfe ) 0 otvyj 9 BtJvcu " KeTQev SQsv tfeo tjksi , HoAw 6 e 6 re p QY w $ rax ^ a * ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1816, page 78, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2449/page/14/
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