Jeremiah Burroughs Quotes

“Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Be sure of your call to every business you go about. Though it is the least business, be sure of your call to it; then, whatever you meet with, you may quiet your heart with this: I know I am where God would have me. Nothing in the world will quiet the heart so much as this: when I meet with any cross, I know I am where God would have me, in my place and calling; I am about the work that God has set me.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“You may think you find peace in Christ when you have no outward troubles, but is Christ your peace when the Assyrian comes into the land, when the enemy comes? ... Jesus Christ would be peace to the soul when the enemy comes into the city, and into your houses.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“[E]very comfort that the saints have in this world is an earnest penny to them of those eternal mercies that the Lord has provided for them.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“When [the saints] perform actions to God, then the soul says: 'Oh! that I could do what pleases God!' When they come to suffer any cross: 'Oh, that what God does might please me!' I labour to do what pleases God, and I labour that what God does shall please me: here is a Christian indeed, who shall endeavour both these. It is but one side of a Christian to endeavour to do what pleases God; you must as well endeavour to be pleased with what God does, and so you will come to be a complete Christian when you can do both, and that is the first thing in the excellence of this grace of contentment.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

Now this is a mystery to a carnal heart. They can see no such thing; perhaps they think God loves them when he prospers them and makes them rich, but they think God loves them not when he afflicts them. That is a mystery, but grace instructs men in that mystery, grace enables men to see love in the very frown of God's face, and so come to receive contentment.

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“If you would get a contented life, do not grasp too much of the world, do not take in more of the business of the world than God calls you to.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Thus, a godly man wonders at his cross that it is not more, a wicked man wonders his cross is so much:”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Christian, how did you enjoy comfort before? Was the creature anything to you but a conduit, a pipe, that conveyed God's goodness to you? 'The pipe is cut off,' says God, 'come to me, the fountain, and drink immediately.' Though the beams are taken away, yet the sun remains the same in the firmament as ever it was.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“In a clock, stop but one wheel and you stop every wheel, because they are dependent upon one other. So when God has ordered a thing for the present to be thus and thus, how do you know how many things depend upon this thing? God may have some work to do twenty years hence that depends on this passage of providence that falls out this day or this week.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“If I become content by having my desire satisfied, that is only self-love; but when I am contented with the hand of God and am willing to be at His disposal, that comes from my love to God.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Oh, that we could but convince men and women that murmuring spirit is a greater evil than any affliction, whatever the affliction!”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Note this, I beseech you: in active obedience we worship God by doing what pleases God, but by passive obedience we do as well worship God by being pleased with what God does.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“A godly man in the midst of the waves and storms that he meets with can see the glory of heaven before him and so contents himself. One drop of the sweetness of heaven is enough to take away all the sourness and bitterness of all the afflictions in the world. We know that one drop of sourness, or one drop of gall will make bitter a great deal of it; but if you put a spoonful of gall into a cup of sugar, it will embitter that. Now it is otherwise in heaven: one drop of sweetness will sweeten a great deal of sour affliction, but a great deal of sourness and gall will not embitter a soul who sees the glory of heaven that is to come.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Indeed, our afflictions may be heavy, and we cry out, Oh, we cannot bear them, we cannot bear such an affliction. Though you cannot tell how to bear it with your own strength, yet how can you tell what you will do with the strength of Jesus Christ? You say you cannot bear it? So you think that Christ could not bear it? But if Christ could bear it why may you not come to bear it? You will say, Can I have the strength of Christ? Yes, it is made over to you by faith: the Scripture says that the Lord is our strength, God himself is our strength, and Christ is our strength. There are many Scriptures to that effect, that Christ's strength is yours, made over to you, so that you may be able to bear whatever lies upon you,”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“I beseech you to consider that God does not deal by you as you deal with him.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“It is a special part of the divine worship that we owe to God, to be content in a Christian way, as has been shown to you.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“I am discontented because I have not these things which God never yet promised me, and therefore I sin much against the Gospel, and against the grace of faith.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Temptations will no more prevail over a contented man, than a dart that is thrown against a brazen wall.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“My brethren, the reason why you have not got contentment in the things of the world is not because you have not got enough of them-that is not the reason-but the reason is, because they are not things proportionable to that immortal soul of yours that is capable of God himself.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“As in a tree, there is more sap in an Arm of the tree, than in a little sprig; but the sprig hath the same sap for kind that the Arm of the tree hath, and it all comes from the same root. So though there be more venom in some gross, crying sins, than in some others; yet there is no sin but hath the same sap, and the same venom, for the kind, that every sin hath, that the worst sin hath.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“You can never make a ship go steady by propping it outside; you know there must be ballast within the ship to make it go steady. So there is nothing outside us that can keep our hearts in a steady, constant way, but grace within the soul.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“The disorders of your hearts, and their sinful workings are as words before God.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“It is contrary to the worship that is in contentedness.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“The Lord does not so much look at the work that is done, as at the faithfulness of our hearts in doing it.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“To be well skilled in the mystery of Christian contentment is the duty, glory, and excellence of a Christian.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

Here lies the bottom and root of all contentment, when there is an evenness and proportion between our hearts and our circumstances.

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“It is but one side of a Christian to endeavour to do what pleases God; you must as well endeavour to be pleased with what God does.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“There is a compound of grace in contentment: there is faith, and there is humility, and love, and there is patience, and there is wisdom, and there is hope; almost all graces are compounded. [ ... ] In one action that you do you may exercise one grace especially, but in contentment you exercise a great many graces at once.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“One drop of the sweetness of heaven is enough to take away all the sourness and bitterness of all the afflictions in the world.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

Now I say that a heart that has no grace, and is not instructed in this mystery of contentment, knows of no way to get contentment, but to have his possessions raised up to his desires; but the Christian has another way to contentment, that is, he can bring his desires down to his possessions, and so he attains his contentment ... The world is infinitely deceived in thinking that contentment lies in having more than we already have. Here lies the bottom and root of all contentment, when there is an evenness and proportion between our hearts and our circumstances. That is why many godly men who are in low position live more sweet and comfortable lives than those who are richer.

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Psalm 106:24, 25: 'Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word; but murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord. Therefore he lifted up his hand against them to overthrow them in the wilderness.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“The truth is, it is more obedience to submit to God in a low calling than to submit to Him in a higher calling. For it is sheer obedience, mere obedience, that makes you go on in a low calling; but there may be much self-love that makes men go on in a higher calling. For there are riches, credit, and account in the world; and rewards come in by that, which do not in the other.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“I find a sufficiency of satisfaction in my own heart, through the grace of Christ that is in me. Though I have not outward comforts and worldly conveniences to supply my necessities, yet I have a sufficient portion between Christ and my soul abundantly to satisfy me in every condition.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

There is more good in contentment, than there is in the thing that you would fain have to cure your discontent ...

— Jeremiah Burroughs

Do not think, Oh, that I were delivered from all these afflictions and troubles here in this world! If you were, then you would have more ease yourself, but this is a way of honoring God, and manifesting the excellence of grace here, when you are in this conflict of temptation, which God shall not have from you in Heaven.

— Jeremiah Burroughs

Thou hast gone on in all thy life hitherto, ever since thou wast born, in a continual opposition to God Himself, unto the infinite Lord, the eternal first being of all the world; thy life hath been nothing but enmity to this God: thou hast as directly opposed, and striven against, and resisted Him, as ever man did oppose, and resist, and strive with another man, and this thou hast done in the whole course of thy life: certainly there is more in this to humble a man than anything that can be spoken to shew him the evil of sin.

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“So be satisfied and quiet, be contented with your contentment. I lack certain things that others have, but blessed be God, I have a contented heart which others have not.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

Your mercies are more than your afflictions.

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“It is the happiness of heaven to have God be all in all.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“If riches increase, set not your hearts upon them: so if friends increase, set not your hearts upon them, but trust in the living God, let it be the living God that you rest on even for all outward things in this world.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

We should study Christ, and praise and bless God, and have our hearts enlarged for Jesus Christ. This is the duty of believers to whom God has revealed Christ as wonderful, that in their conversations they should hold out the wonderful glory of Jesus Christ. You should so walk before men as to manifest to all the world that your Savior is a wonderful Savior

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Contentment is not by addition but by subtraction: seeking to add a thing will not bring contentment. Instead, subtracting from your desires until you are satisfied only with Christ brings contentment.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

When God has given you your heart's desire, what have you done with your heart's desire?

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Holiness is the very principle of eternal life, the very beginning of eternal life in the heart, and that which will certainly grow up to eternal life.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Our names ... are in the hands of God, Who will preserve them so far as He has use of them, and further we shall have no use of them ourselves.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“Faith has this excellency, that it is able to bring life out of death, light out of darkness. It has a kind of creating virtue.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

It is a woman's reason to say I will do such a thing because I will.

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“What is the duty of the circumstances God has put me into?”

— Jeremiah Burroughs

“You will not find one Godly man who came out of an affliction worse than when he went into it. Though for a little while he was shaken, yet, at last, he was better for an affliction. But, a great many Godly men have been worse for their prosperity.”

— Jeremiah Burroughs