Treatise on Earthly Mindedness, A

Jeremiah Burroughs is one of the most beloved of the seventeenth-century English Puritans. In this important work, Burroughs shows from Scripture the great sin of thinking as the world thinks rather than thinking God’s thoughts after Him. Then, realizing that right conduct is the result of right thinking, Burroughs gives us more gems in the two bonus treatises offered here, A Heavenly Conversation and Walking with God.

The Puritans rightly discerned the relationship between a person’s doctrine and his or her walk before God and fellow man. May the Lord use these sermons to give us the same kind of discernment in our day. May we learn to think biblically, and then may we begin to act accordingly.

"This volume may be the most comprehensive treatment of the nature and enticements of worldliness. It is a prose version of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, reflecting the keen insight of Puritan Christianity. It is far too valuable to be ignored."
- R.C. Sproul

“We give ourselves with abandon to our pleasures as if we would die tomorrow. But we build houses and accumulate things as if we would live forever. You ought to consider this more. The Puritans were great at meditating on this life with the next one in view. I encourage you to read Jeremiah Burroughs’s A Treatise of Earthly-Mindedness. It is a wonderful meditation on exactly what this kind of worldly-mindedness means and what it looks like in our lives.” — Mark Dever, senior pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC

272 pages.

View excerpt here.

Table of Contents: 

A Treatise of Earthly-Mindedness 

Foreword by R.C. Sproul 

To the Reader

Chapter One: Doctrine: There is a great difference between a wicked man and a godly man. The one minds the earth; the other’s conversation is in heaven

Chapter Two: Earthly-Mindedness Discovered in Nine Particulars

Chapter Three: Six Evils of Earthly-Mindedness 

Chapter Four: Eight Additional Evils of Earthly-Mindedness 

Chapter Five: Five Things may be Wrought in an Earthly-Minded Man 

Chapter Six: Seven Reasons of Men’s Earthly-Mindedness 

Chapter Seven: Eleven Considerations to Take the Hearts of Men off of Earthly-Mindedness 

Chapter Eight: Five Directions How to Get Our Hearts Free From Earthly-Mindedness 

A Heavenly Conversation 

Chapter One: How Far the Examples of Godly Men Should Prevail With Us 

Chapter Two: What’s to be Done when Examples of Godly Men are Contrary?

Chapter Three: Rebuke of Those that Follow the Example of the Wicked and Reject the Example of the Godly 

Chapter Four: Two Doctrines Observed From the Text 

Chapter Five: How the Saints are Citizens of Heaven 

Chapter Six: How the Saints Have Their Conversation in Heaven 

Chapter Seven: The Saints’ Trading for Heaven 

Chapter Eight: Seven Evidences of Men’s Having Their Conversation in Heaven

Chapter Nine: Four Reasons Why the Saints Have Their Conversations in Heaven 

Chapter Ten: Use 1: To reprove such as have their conversations in hell

Chapter Eleven: Use 2: To reprove hypocrites 

Chapter Twelve: Use 3: Let us not find fault with the strictness of God’s ways 

Chapter Thirteen: Use 4: Let us not find fault with the strictness of God’s ways 

Chapter Fourteen: A heavenly conversation is a convincing conversation

Chapter Fifteen: A heavenly conversation is growing

Chapter Sixteen: A heavenly conversation brings much glory to God 

Chapter Seventeen: A heavenly conversation brings much glory to the saints 

Chapter Eighteen: A heavenly conversation will make suffering easy 

Chapter Nineteen: A heavenly conversation brings much joy 

Chapter Twenty: A Heavenly Conversation Is Very Safe 

Chapter Twenty-One: A Heavenly Conversation Gives Abundant Entrance into Glory 

Chapter Twenty-Two: Seven Directions How to Get a Heavenly Conversation 

Walking with God 

Chapter One: The Text Opened

Chapter Two: Doctrine: ‘Tis the excellency of a Christian to walk with God 

Chapter Three: How the Soul Is Brought to walk with God

Chapter Four: What Walking With God Is

Chapter Five: Twelve Distinct Excellencies of Walking With God

Chapter Six: Five Uses of Exhortation in Walking With God 

Chapter Seven: Evidences of Our Walking With God

Chapter Eight: Twelve Rules of Direction for Walking With God 

Chapter Nine: An Objection Concerning God’s Hiding His Face Answered in Six Particulars