Jeremiah Burroughs: On Peace and Contentment

The world proudly proclaims “he who dies with the most toys, wins!” In other words, our life is characterized and summarized by what we can accumulate during our life time. One could even say that our life is measured by all that we are able to acquire. The proliferation of storage facilities are both a testimony and a monument to this philosophy.

In his book, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment English Puritan and Pastor Jeremiah Burroughs (1599-1646) preached a long series of sermons that dealt with Christian contentment. As a matter of fact his purpose is found in his statement, “…peace and contentment in the hearts of individual believers during sad and sinking times.”

Burroughs further stated, “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.”

What would Fifth Avenue or the marketing gurus in the advertising world have to say to that? They work feverishly around the clock to convince us that we are unhappy, unsatisfied, and lacking in every conceivable area of our life. There is a sour, outward, loud, ferocious tangle in dissatisfaction which freely submits to and delights in worldly materialism as we denounce God’s unwise and dastardly handling of “gifts” in our lives.

Burroughs with gifted and keen insight shared with his people this text, “I have learned, in whatsoever state I am; therewith to be content.” (Philippians 4:11)

Pick up Burroughs book, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. I think you will find it be totally true that, “there is an ark that you may come into, and no men in the world may live such comfortable, cheerful and contented lives as the saints of God.” (Cited from back page of The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment)