Quotes from Jeremiah Burroughs

There is a Heaven within the souls of the saints-that is a certain truth; no soul shall ever come to Heaven, but the soul which has Heaven come to it first. When you die, you hope you will go to Heaven; but if you will go to Heaven when you die, Heaven will come to you before you die. Now this is a great mystery, to have the Kingdom of Heaven in the soul; no man can know this but that soul which has it.

Know that this is the excellence of grace in a Christian, to be fitted for any condition; not only to say, if it were this or that, but if it were any.

It is contrary to the worship that is in contentedness.

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

Every Christian should say: 'Have I wealth now? I should prepare for poverty. Have I health now? I should prepare for sickness.

Contentment is an inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit-the whole soul, judgment, thoughts, will, affections and all are satisfied and quiet.

It is but one side of a Christian to endeavor to do what pleases God; you must as well endeavor 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.

that the strong beams of the sun of prosperity upon many men make them to be leprous.

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.

And the truth is, I know nothing more effective for quieting a Christian soul and getting contentment than this, setting your heart to work in the duties of the immediate circumstances that you are now in, and taking heed of your thoughts about other conditions as a mere temptation.

For if all the men in the world looked upon you as more happy than themselves, then you would be contented. Oh, do not let your happiness depend upon the fancies of other men.

Without me you can do nothing.