Jeremiah Burroughs was an English Puritan minister who lived between 1599 and 1646. Perhaps his best known work in modern times is titled The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. It’s there in a heartfelt and searching style that he systematically expounds the Apostle Paul’s words in Philippians 4:11––I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content.
The following paragraphs include several excerpts from this thoroughly practical, relevant and God-glorifying work. May it be our prayer to be like Christ in this way who said––For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me (John 6:38).
“[Contentment] is an inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit. It is a frame of spirit and also a gracious frame. Contentment is a soul business.
First, it is inward; Secondly, quiet, Thirdly, it is a quiet frame of spirit. I mean three things when I say that contentment consists in the quiet frame of the spirit of a man.
1. That it is a grace that spreads itself through the whole soul.
It is in the judgment, that is, the judgment of the soul of a man or woman tends to quiet the heart. It is one thing to be satisfied in one’s judgment and understanding, so as to be able to say, ‘This is the hand of God, and is what is suitable to my condition or best for me. Although I do not see the reason for the thing, yet I am satisfied in my judgment about it’. Then it is in the thoughts of a man or woman. As my judgment is satisfied, so my thoughts are kept in order.
And then it comes to the will. My will yields and submits to it; my affections are likewise kept in order, so that it goes through the whole soul.
In some there is a partial contentment. It is not the frame of the soul, but some part of the soul has some contentment.
Many a man may be satisfied in his judgment about a thing who cannot for his life rule his affections, nor his thoughts, nor his will. I do not doubt that many of you know this in your own experience, if you observe the workings of your own hearts. Can you not say when a certain affliction befalls you, I can bless God that I am satisfied in my judgment about it; I have nothing to say about it in respect of my judgment about it? I see the hand of God and I should be content, yea, in my judgment I am satisfied that mine is a good condition. But I cannot for my life rule my thoughts and will and my affections. Methinks I feel my heart heavy and sad and more than it should be; yet my judgment is satisfied. This seemed to be the position of David in Psalm 42: O my soul, why art thou disquieted?’ As far as David’s judgment went there was a contentedness, that is, his judgment was satisfied as to the work of God on him. He was troubled, but he knew not why: ‘O my soul, why art thou cast down within me?’
This is a very good psalm for those who feel a fretting, discontented sickness in their hearts at any time to read and sing. He says once or twice in that Psalm: ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ and in verse 5, ‘And why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.’ David had enough to quiet him, and what he had, prevailed with his judgment.
But after it had prevailed with his judgment, he could not get it any further. He could not get this grace of contentment to go through the whole frame of his soul.
Sometimes, a great deal of disturbance is involved in getting contentment into people’s judgments, that is, to satisfy their judgment about their condition. If you come to many, whom the hand of God is upon perhaps in a grievous manner, and seek to satisfy them and tell them they have no cause to be so disquieted, ‘Oh, no cause?’ says the troubled spirit, ‘then there is no cause for anyone to be disquieted’. There has never been such an affliction as I have?’ And they have a hundred things with which to evade the force of what is said to them, so that you cannot so much as get at their judgments to satisfy them.
But there is a great deal of hope of attaining contentment, if once your judgments are satisfied, if you can sit down and say in your judgment, ‘I see good reason to be contented. Yet even when you have got so far, you may still have much to do with your hearts afterwards. There is such unruliness in our thoughts and affections that our judgments are not always able to rule our thoughts and affections. That is what makes me say that contentment is an inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit––the whole soul, judgment, thoughts, will, affections and all are satisfied and quiet. I suppose that merely in opening this subject you begin to see that it is a lesson that you need to learn, and that if contentment is like this then it is not easily obtained.
2. Spiritual contentment comes from the frame of the soul.
The contentment of a man or woman who is rightly content does not come so much from outward arguments or from any outward help, as from the disposition of their own hearts. The disposition of their own hearts causes and brings forth this gracious contentment rather than any external thing.
Let me explain myself. Someone is disturbed, suppose it to be a child or a man or a woman. If you come and bring some great thing to please them, perhaps it will quiet them and they will be contented. It is the thing you bring that quiets them, not the disposition of their own spirits, not any good temper in their own hearts, but the external thing you bring them. But when a Christian is content in the right way, the quiet comes more from the temper and disposition of his own heart than from any external argument or from the possession of anything in the world.
I would unfold this further to you with this simile: To be content as a result of some external thing is like warming a man’s clothes by the fire. But to be content through an inward disposition of the soul is like the warmth that a man’s clothes have from the natural heat of his body. A man who is healthy in body puts on his clothes, and perhaps at first on a cold morning they feel cold. But after he has had them on a little while they are warm. Now, how did they get warm? They were not near the fire? No, this came from the natural heat of his body. Now when a sickly man, the natural heat of whose body has deteriorated, puts on his clothes, they do not get hot after a long time. He must warm them by the fire, and even then they will soon be cold again.
This will illustrate the different contentments of men. Some are very gracious, and when an affliction comes on them, though at first it seems a little cold, after they have borne it a while, the very temper of their hearts makes their afflictions easy. They are quiet under it and do not complain of any discontent.
But now there are others that have an affliction upon them and have not this good temper in their hearts. Their aflictions are very cold and troublesome to them. Maybe, if you bring some external arguments to bear upon them like the fire that warms the clothes, they will be quiet for a while. But, alas, if they lack a gracious disposition in their own hearts, that warmth will not last long. The warmth of the fire, that is, a contentment that results merely from external arguments, will not last long. But that which comes from the gracious temper of one’s spirit will last.
When it comes from the spirit of a man or woman––that is true contentment.
3. It is the frame of spirit that shows the habitual character of this grace of contentment.
Contentment is not merely one act, just a flash in a good mood. You find many men and women who, if they are in a good mood, will be very quiet (contented).
But this will not hold. It is not a constant course. It is not the constant tenor of their spirits to be holy and gracious under afliction. Now I say that contentment is a quiet frame of spirit and by that I mean that you should find men and women in a good mood not only at this or that time, but as the constant tenor and temper of their hearts. A Christian who, in the constant tenor and temper of his heart, can carry himself quietly with constancy has learned this lesson of contentment.”1
1Burroughs, Jeremiah. “It Is A Frame of Spirit.” The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, 1961, pp. 25–29.
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