Quotes from 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.

when the heart of a man has nothing to do, but to be busy about creature-comforts, every little thing troubles him; but when the heart is taken up with the weighty things of eternity, with the great things of eternal life, the things of here below that disquieted it before are things now of no consequence to him in comparison with the other-how things fall out here is not much regarded by him, if the one thing that is necessary is provided for.

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.

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.

It's certain that the thing a man's heart is most taken with and set upon is his God.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

In a clock, stop but one wheel and you stop every wheel, because they are dependent upon one another. 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.

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.

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

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

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