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

Sect. 8 2. Secondly, The season of Grace is called a Day. For the opening of this, the word [Day] in Scripture is sometimes taken for the Natural Day, ⟨p. 93⟩consisting of 24 hours, including also the night; and so it is taken in Christ's Directory for prayer, which we commonly call the Lord's prayer, (Directory (I say) for I conceive (with learned Grotius) Christ doth not command verba recitari, the words thereof to be repeated, but he commands us only to draw all the matter of our prayers out of it, materiam precum hinc promi praecipit:) wherein when we pray for our daily bread day by day, doubtless we pray for what is needful for the night too as well as the day; (for sleep is the bread of the night.) therefore by day there must be meant the whole natural day, consisting of 24 hours. Sometimes the word day is taken for an Artificial day distinguished from the night, Gen. 41.40. In the day the drought, and in the night the frost consumed me. Sometimes the word day is taken improperly and figuratively in the Scriptures; and so sometimes it is taken for an age, and for a year. Sometimes for a fit occasion or season of doing any thing; as in John 9.4. I must do the work of him that sent me while it is day. And so the season of receiving good, as well as doing good, is called a day; Luke 19.41, 42. If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that concern thy peace: that is, in the season, wherein they have been manifested unto thee by me. So here by day I understand the fit season of procuring Salvation by improving the means for obtaining thereof. This briefly for the opening of the first Argument, which is the fitness of the present season of Grace for our working: it is called the time, the day.

2. Secondly, To open the second Argument, and that is the advantageousness Sect. 9 of the present season to the worker, and it is called the accepted time first, and secondly the day of Salvation. I shall open both these in their order, and,