Two treatises of Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs. The first of earthly-mindedness

Secondly, When the Cream and choice of the thoughts of men and women are busied about earthly things then they mind earthly things in a sinful manner: You may know what your hearts are by your thoughts as much as any thing, the thoughts ⟨p. 7⟩are the immediate ebullitions or risings up of the heart (as I may so call them) that is the bubbles that come from the heart immediately; a man cannot know what is in his heart so much by words and actions, as by the thoughts, because the thoughts immediately spring from the heart, as thus, I can tell what the water is in such a fountain better from that that bubbles up immediately from the fountain-head, than I can tell by the water that runs in the stream a mile or two off, for there may many things intervene in the stream a mile or two off that never came from the fountain-head, but that that immediately bubbles from the fountain-head, that discovers of what nature the fountain is: So the thoughts are as it were the first born of the heart, and therefore the heart may be known what it is by the thoughts, Prov. 23. 7. saith the holy Ghost there, As he thinketh in his heart, so is he; That which is here spoken in a particular case may be applied in the general, As a man thinks in his heart so is he, as his thoughts are so is he: So is the heart as the thoughts of the mind are, Men may keep in words and actions out of by-respects, I but if you could know what the heart is, and look into the haunts of it in secret, that would discover to your selves what you are: as now, Many of your servants, when they are in your presence before you or before others they may out of divers respects carry themselves fairly, but if you would find them out, labour to know what they do when they are alone in their private haunts: So, would you know your own hearts? do not so much look at them, and take a scantling of them by how you behave your selves in words and actions before others, but what they are in your private chambers, what they are in the inward thoughts of the mind, there the heart comes to be discovered most; And by these thoughts I do not mean every kind of injection, or suggestion, for sometimes the Devil may cast in evil thoughts into the most holy;

Secondly, When the Cream and choise of the thoughts of men and women are busied about earthly things then they mind earthly things in a sinful manner: You may know what your hearts are by your thoughts as much as any thing, the thoughts