The sacred diary
William Gearing, The sacred diary; or, Select meditations for every part of the day, pp. 57-58:
Some commend the morning as the fittest time to busy our minds in holy meditation, for these reasons:
1. Because they find it was the practice of David, that man of meditation. He said unto God, “When I awake, I am still with thee,” Psa. cxxxix. 18. That is, When I awake in the morning, I am taken up with meditations of God. Divine meditations were daily David’s waking and first thoughts.
2. Because then the mind, a man’s intellectual and cogitative faculty, is fresh, and more free from the hurrying business of the world, which fall out every day, and are apt to distract the mind in this holy duty.
3. Because if the mind be first seasoned with holy meditation, it tends much to keep both mind and conversation in an holy frame all the day after; for oftentimes what a man’s first thoughts are, they become his frequent thoughts on that day. If a man begins the day with vain, worldly, or revengeful thoughts, they are apt to lodge in his heart all the day long; such thoughts are intruding and abiding guests.
4. Because God restores to us his mercies every morning; new mercies do attend us every morning; and these renewed merices should oblige us to renew our thoughts and meditations on God every morning.
