A supplement to The Morning-exercise at Cripple-Gate, or, Several more cases of conscience practically…

2. They that live in the Reformed World in this age of Light, should abound more in knowledge, than they that lived before the Reformation in the darkness of Popery. A little knowledge might have gone further then, than a great deal more now: The means of knowledge are now much greater, than 3 or 4 hundred years ago they were. There is not only more humane learning abroad in the World, than then there was; but the Original Languages in which the Scriptures were written, are better known. The Word is more soundly and powerfully preached, Controversies in Religion are more throughly discussed, more good books are written, more cases stated, more errors detected, and in a word, many truths, (which though always to be found in Scripture, yet were almost lost in the World in the Ignorance of those ages) are anew discovered.

3. They who live under better means of Instruction now, should ordinarily be more knowing than such as have not the like means. They that have the word preached to them more plainly, powerfully, frequently, should know more, than they who sit under an idle ignorant Ministry. They that may hear a Sermon every day, if they will, than they that can scarce hear one Sermon in many months. And so should they likewise, who live in Religious Families, where God is daily worshipped, Children and Servants daily instructed, know more than they who live under profane, or ignorant Masters or Parents.

¹2: They that have more time for the gaining of knowledge, are concerned to know more than they that have less time. Not only by how much the longer men enjoy such means, the more they should know, (and more than such as have lived a less season under them: Upon which account the Apostle blames the Hebrews, Ch. 5.12. because, when for the time they ought to be Teachers, they had need that one should again teach them, which were the first Principles of the Oracles of God; And