Jeremiah Burroughs Quotes

Your mercies are more than your afflictions.

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.

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.

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

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

When you sailors see the haven before you, though you were mightily troubled before you could see any land, yet when you come near the shore and can see a certain land-mark, that contents you greatly. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

A noble heart is a thankful heart that loves to acknowledge whenever it has received any mercy.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

But if I have once overcome my heart, and am contented through the grace of God in my heart, then this makes me content not only in one particular but in general, whatever befalls me.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

the disorders of your hearts, and their sinful workings are as words before God.

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