The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…

§. 14. XIV. If there were no life of Retribution, the wiser any man were, the more miserable would he be, and knowledge would be their plague, and ignorance the way to their greatest pleasure: But the consequence is absurd: Ergo, so is the antecedent.

The reason of the consequence is manifest in what is said: the Ignorant have nothing to disturb them in their sensual delights. The liker to beasts they can be to eat, and drink, and play, and satisfy every lust, and never think of a reckoning, or of death it self, the more uninterrupted would be their delights; the fore-thoughts of death or any change would not disturb them: their folly, which maketh them over-value all the matters of the flesh, would increase their pleasure and felicity: for things delight men as they are esteemed, rather than as indeed they are. But the more wise and knowing men would always see vanity and vexation written upon all the treasures and pleasures of the world; and in the midst of their delights would fore-see death coming to cut them off, and bring them to a dolorous end. So that undoubtedly the most knowing would be the most miserable; and though Nature delight in knowing much, it would but let in an inundation of vexatious passions on the mind.

The reason of the consequence is manifest in what is said: the Ignorant have nothing to disturb them in their sensual delights. The liker to beasts they can be to eat, and drink, and play, and satisfie every lust, and never think of a reckoning, or of death it self, the more uninterrupted would be their delights; the fore-thoughts of death or any change would not disturb them: their folly, which maketh them over-value all the matters of the flesh, would encrease their pleasure and felicity: for things delight men as they are esteemed, rather than as indeed they are. But the more wise and knowing men would always see vanity and vexation written upon all the treasures and pleasures of the world; and in the midst of their delights would fore-see death coming to cut them off, and bring them to a dolorous end. So that undoubtedly the most knowing would be the most miserable; and though Nature delight in knowing much, it would but let in an inundation of vexatious passions on the mind.