The saints everlasting rest

3. Concerning the time of this duty, I advise thee, that thou choose the most seasonable time. All things are beautiful in their season. Unseasonableness may lose thee the fruit of thy labour; it may raise disturbances and difficulties in the work; yea, it may turn a duty to sin; when the seasonableness of a duty doth make it easy, doth remove impediments, doth embolden us to the undertaking, and ripen its fruit.

The seasons of this duty are either, First, ordinary: or, Secondly, extraordinary.

First, The ordinary season of your daily performance cannot be particularly determined, otherwise GOD would have determined in his word. Men's conditions of employment, and freedom, and bodily temper, are so various, that the same may be a seasonable hour to one, which may be unseasonable to another. If thou be a servant, or an hard labourer, that thou hast not thy time at command, thou must take that season which thy business will best afford: either as thou sittest in the shop at thy work, or as thou travellest on the way, or as thou liest waking in the night. Every man best knows his own time, even when he hath the least to hinder him in the world: but for those whose necessities tie them not so close, but that they may choose what time of the day they will, my advice to such is, that they carefully observe the temper of their body and mind, and mark when they find their spirits most active and fit for contemplation, and pitch upon that as the stated time. Some men are freest for duties when they are fasting, and some are then unfittest of all. Every man is the meetest judge for himself. The time I have always found fittest for myself, is, the evening, from sun-setting to the twilight; and sometime in the night when it is warm and clear.