I don’t like your going to _Vauxhall_, I think you ought to try every possible means, to get off. Suppose you were to be sincere, and own it was against your conscience. Pray God direct you what to do. If you are really _forced_ to go, God will preserve your heart from the pollutions of the place. If this is the case, I think you will be in less danger of being hurt there, than in your visit to Mrs. ****: for in this visit you will lie exposed to the worst enemy you have, that is, _yourself_. With those good people, whom you love and admire, and who love and admire you, you will without the most constant watchfulness, be continually falling into self-seeking and self-applause. I fear, my love, you will soon think me too plain in my speaking; but I cannot answer it to my conscience, since what has past between us, not to warn you of every thing which seems to me to prevent your progress in grace. Don’t imagine though, that I wish you would not make this visit to Mrs. ****; quite the contrary; but I wish you to keep the most constant guard upon your own heart, that what should be for your health, be not unto you an occasion of falling. _I am your ever sincere and affectionate_, &c. * * * * * *I THANK God, that you now see the danger of wandring imaginations in a clearer light; but I cannot guess what schemes a heart like yours (which I should hope was desirous of nothing but what immediately tended to increase in it the love ♦of God) can pursue, which are not for what we call doing good. Depend upon it, my dear, if you can by an act of your will waste a thought on any future view of happiness, that regards only your situation in this world, you are yet far from the kingdom of God. To a soul, that has but the _lowest_ sense of the pardoning love of God, every thing that does not lead to a greater sense of this love is insipid. Outward things, according to the present circumstances we are in, ought to be attended to with prudence, though not with anxiousness; but that soul which runs out after them in _future_, ought to _tremble_. My dear creature, are we not every moment on the brink of eternity, and may plunge in the next, for ought we know? What then have we to do, but every moment to grasp after new degrees of grace, new power over sin, a still higher sense of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts? “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord”――Alas! what is a life of sixty or seventy years (supposing we could be certain of so many) to attain universal holiness? And shall we lose a moment? Outwardly we must a great many: but still our hearts may be gaining ground in the steady pursuit of that end, for which we were created, and to which we have such glorious encouragements. What! shall Christ cry out to us in vain, “Give me thy heart?” Or shall we dare to divide that heart, which cost him so dear? O my friend, be jealous for your redeeming God.