There is yet another con-
ceit that hath sometimes made me shut my books, which
tells me it is a vanity to waste our days in the blind
pursuit of knowledge: it is but attending a little longer,
and we shall enjoy that, by instinct and infusion, which
we endeavour at here by labour and inquisition. It is
better to sit down in a modest ignorance, and rest con-
tented with the natural blessing of our own reasons,
than by the uncertain knowledge of this life with sweat
and vexation, which death gives every fool gratis, and is
an accessary of our glorification.
Sect. 9.--I was never yet once, and commend their
resolutions who never marry twice. Not that I dis-
allow of second marriage; as neither in all cases of poly-
gamy, which considering some times, and the unequal
number of both sexes, may be also necessary. The
whole world was made for man, but the twelfth part of
man for woman. Man is the whole world, and the
breath of God; woman the rib and crooked piece of
man. I could be content that we might procreate like
trees, without conjunction, or that there were any way
to perpetuate the world without this trivial and vulgar
way of coition: it is the foolishest act a wise man com-
mits in all his life, nor is there anything that will more
deject his cooled imagination, when he shall consider
what an odd and unworthy piece of folly he hath com-
mitted.
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