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ECCLESIASTES CHAPTER 2
Pleasure and mirth also vanity, Ecc_2:1,2; whether in wine, or buildings and gardens, or servants, or cattle, or silver and gold, or music, Ecc_2:3-8. This the Preacher searched out and found, and none need try after him, Ecc_2:9-12. Wisdom excelleth folly, Ecc_2:13,14; but the like event is to both, and both are forgotten; therefore is wisdom also vanity, and life hateful, Ecc_2:15-17. Not labour they know not for whom, but the fool enjoyeth the wise man’s pains: this rendered his toil irksome, that he reaped no fruit, and yet his days were travail and grief, Ecc_2:18-23. There is nothing better than to enjoy contentedly what God giveth us; and this also is of God, who giveth travail to the sinner, Ecc_2:24-26.
I said in mine heart; being disappointed of my hopes from knowledge, I resolved in my own mind to try another course.
I will prove thee, O my soul, I will try whether I cannot make thee happy, with mirth; by allowing to myself the free enjoyment of the present and sensible delights of human life.
Enjoy pleasure; take thy fill of pleasure, and expect satisfaction thence.
Is vanity; is vain, and unable to make men happy, because sensible pleasures are mean and unsuitable to the noble and heaven-born soul of man, and if excessively used, apter to cloy and glut men than to satisfy them, and are frequently mixed with, and most commonly end in, bitterness, as being the great instruments and occasions of sin, and of all its fatal consequences.