8 Blessings for Christians: Abridged and in Modern English: Jeremiah Burroughs for the 21st Century Reader, #3

By Rob Summers

Blessed are the poor in spirit…blessed are those who mourn…and six others. All very well in the Bible, but what do Christ's Beatitudes mean for those struggling with present-day stresses? Surprisingly, answers may come from long ago when 17th century Minister Jeremiah Burroughs explained and applied Jesus' words with clarity, gentle encouragement, and not-so gentle challenges that have never been forgotten. His classic text is now reworded in modern English and abridged for today's reader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rob Summers
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005766214

Rob Summers

The author of the Jeremiah Burroughs for the 21st Century Reader series (and many novels) is retired, having been an administrative assistant at a university. He lives with his wife on six wooded acres in rural Indiana. After discovering, while in his thirties, that writing novels is even more fulfilling than reading them, he began to create worlds and people on paper. His Mage powers include finding morel mushrooms and making up limericks in his head. Feel free to email him at [e-mail]

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Introduction

A few years ago I abridged and updated the language of The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, a 17th century classic by Puritan preacher Jeremiah Burroughs. This proved to be a help for many who wished to have the substance of his message but who would have found the original wording to be slow going. Encouraged by readers’ responses, I have done the same for this volume of Burrough’s teachings on the Beatitudes. Originally entitled The Saints’ Happiness, it is both longer and less known than Rare Jewel, the former possibly leading to the latter. It is, however, equally full of practical advice on Christian living, encouragement to serve others in the power of grace, and invitations to abandon our sinful stubbornness and self-deceptions in order to receive the blessings of the Lord. Many of the ideas and comparisons Burroughs used in Rare Jewel are found in this longer volume, though sometimes with different emphases or applications.

The substantial abridgment throughout, done to eliminate repetitions and reduce the book to an inviting length, includes removal of the original introductory materials and all that the author wrote about Matthew 5:13-15, the verses immediately following the Beatitudes. As with the previous book, I have also organized the text in shorter paragraphs, dropped old-fashioned numbering of headings, inserted additional Bible references, and where Scripture is within quotation marks, substituted text from the New American Standard Bible. Though these changes and others are extensive, I do not think they have been carried too far, for the intent has been to make the work accessible to all, including those with little or no knowledge of the Bible.

Burroughs’ usual mixture of explanation, tender compassion, and concerned but firm reproach makes the book, to me, more a devotional than a commentary, a volume to keep handy by the bed or armchair and contemplate in small doses. It was originally a series of the author’s sermons delivered during the English Civil War, a gift to his two London congregations of his best thoughts on the Beatitudes. I too have found it to be a gift, one helping me to see the world more as the Lord does; and I hope I have helped it do the same for you.

I should add that, after searching the internet, I remain unaware of any other edition available in modern English.

—Rob Summers

Chapter 1: The Blessing for the Poor in Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3).

Blessed are the poor... Christ said to his disciples.

Though the words are somewhat startling, it is better to accept his judgement of what blessedness is; for what is the opinion of any of us fallible sinners compared to his? The poor are blessed, then, and therefore will certainly be filled with all the good that humans are capable of receiving.

Blessed are the poor, and yet not everyone who is poor, but only those who are poor in spirit.  Some poor are under God’s curse, that is, those who bring poverty on themselves by their idleness, wickedness, and prodigality.  Some, while they are young, squander their incomes, having the time, but not the inclination, to put aside savings for emergencies.  Perhaps they spend so recklessly, sinking deeply in debt, that they and their families are ruined.  Others have committed such crimes that the hand of justice has impoverished them. Christ pronounces no blessing on any of their sort.

Many, then, are poor but not poor in spirit; poor, and yet proud, stubborn, and profane; scorning godliness and religion. Certainly, these poor are cursed.  When, in Luke 6:20, Jesus said, Blessed are you who are poor, he was looking at his disciples, and not just anyone within hearing. What a multitude of the poorest people we find living without God: foul mouthed, unclean, and as profane and ungodly as any on earth. If you are among them, you must not think that, because you are miserable, therefore you have had your hell here on earth and will not be miserable hereafter. Just read the Epistle of Jude, verse 7, where the apostle speaks of some who were consumed by fire from heaven (Genesis 19:24) and yet were sent down to eternal fire afterwards.  So it is with some now: forsaken by the Lord in this world, and likely to be forsaken for all eternity in the world to come.

But perhaps such cautioning is of no interest to you. You would like to say to me, I’m sure this moralizing has its place, but it’s of little comfort to someone with bills to pay!

Little comfort! Do you think that the Bible offers you worldly comfort? If you are poor and desire to have comfort from the Bible, I would be unwilling to let this pass without adding some words about what sort of comforts the Bible does speak of.

Will you then give up regarding the Bible as a worldly comfort catalog? If so, then in order that you may not be discouraged in your poverty, know that the Scripture offers you these other comforts:

You who are poor have a soul as precious and valuable to God as those of the greatest monarchs on earth.

You who are poor may have as free access to God and heaven as any of the greatest rulers of the world. There is as great a possibility, if you desire it, for you to have a crown of glory in the highest heavens as there is for the greatest monarch.

Not only are you as near to eternal blessedness as the rich and prominent, but in some respects nearer (that is, if you are not wicked and ungodly and you desire blessedness).  In fact, you are more likely to attain to blessedness than they are, for your temptations are not as great as theirs. Though poverty may tempt you to despair and to underhanded ways, yet there is more resistance to these sins in human nature than to the sins that tempt the rich—which are to satisfy their lusts and to be proud, haughty, and scornful. There lies the greater danger.

The Lord has revealed in the Scriptures that he has chosen the poor of the world as his own. Though he has chosen to save some who are rich, yet the Lord turns his thoughts more toward the poor.  In James 2:5 we read, Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith?  Listen to this so that you may be encouraged to focus on true blessedness.

God has also seen to it that his gospel is preached especially to the poor. In Luke 14:21 Christ sends out his servants to invite in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame, and in Matthew 11:5 it says, The poor have the gospel preached to them.  Therefore the gospel is appointed to be preached to those among my readers who are poor.

When I consider miserable people who are poor with regard to material things, but have hearts ready to receive the gospel, how I wish God would lead them to attend churches (not being ashamed of a lack of good clothes, or this or that), to go and listen! For if you are one of these, you are invited. Though you may lack bread to satisfy your hunger, you are invited to partake of the Bread of Life, that is, Jesus Christ. Though you are not invited to rich men’s tables, yet God has asked you to his table, to the supper of the Lamb Jesus.

If the Lord calls you, he will not regard you any the less because you are poor, but he will have as high an opinion of you as of the greatest Christian emperor. His Spirit will embrace you just the same, and you will enjoy the same closeness with him.

You may say, "I can believe that the Lord will regard me as much as he does those great emperors and kings who are wicked but, come now, even as much as a godly king?"

The answer is yes. Suppose there is a godly king and a godly beggar. The beggar may have as close a relationship with God as does the godly king, and God may accept his services just as well as the king’s; for God does not so much regard the greatness of the service that is done for him as he does one’s faithfulness and uprightness in serving.

How I wish that God would bless your poverty so that you would think to yourself, Well, here I am, a poor miserable person, and there’s little hope that I’ll ever take a place among the prominent people. Why not seek spiritual riches then? I’ll likely always be miserable here regarding material things; but why shouldn’t my soul (yes, and body too) be blessed in the end? Why shouldn’t I be blessed with God and Christ forever?

If it were proclaimed that on a given day I would preach a sermon to show how all the poor in my parish could become rich men and women and live wealthy all their days, I am sure that on that day the place would be packed with poor people. But suppose I said instead (vowing before God and pawning my soul on it) that, if you would come and hear, I would show you how to be blessed for all eternity?  Suppose I promised you greater riches than if God would make you earthly kings and queens, so that it might be said, not just Blessed are the poor, but blessed is this particular poor man that lives on this street or in that rundown hovel? What then?

That indeed is the promise. The very angels of God will look upon you as a blessed creature if you will listen to the gospel.

Unblessed poverty of spirit

I have not said that all those who are poor are blessed, but only those who are poor in spirit. But I might add that there is also a so-called ‘poverty of spirit’ that is evil and accursed.  I refer to those with low and sordid spirits, who are so sunk down to earthly, sensual things that they aim at nothing higher than to eat and drink and satisfy their flesh’s desires.

Consider a poor woman who goes about looking through other’s throwaways, scavenging for things she can sell. She is not to be blamed for it; but if her highest object in life is to find something valuable in the rubbish, and then she thinks herself blessed and minds nothing higher, then she is living shamefully. You will say, Now that’s a poor spirit!

But truly, poor spirits are found in middle-class people too, yes, and even in the nobility and upper class people of the world. As with the poor, these include the sort of man who cares only for satisfying his flesh—to eat and drink and be immoral—as the most suitable thing for him, while aiming at no fine work at all, nor even thinking of it. There are other sorts as well. One man focuses narrowly on money and other unworthy things, and another may seem to look higher, but soon drops out of any public-spirited project, whether of church or of government. After meeting with the slightest difficulty, he is presently dead in the nest. Also, there is he who is led aside from good works by the slightest temptation, for though he is convinced in his conscience that he should not do certain things, he is not able to resist. In another sense than the godly, all of these have poor spirits indeed!

But the Lord wants his Christians to be of poor spirits in the godly sense, that is, to be humble. At the same time this means he wants them to be of high and lofty spirits in the sense that nothing in this world will satisfy them. Though such a man knows himself to be unworthy of the least crumb of bread, he says, And yet if I had the whole world, it wouldn’t satisfy me. Rather I must have God himself; I must have heaven, eternity, and glory.

This is someone of truly lofty spirit; and all worldly people have low spirits by comparison.

Therefore, not everyone who is poor in spirit is blessed. Who then? What sort of poverty of spirit makes a man blessed? For that you must know:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, means that a man or woman is willing to be poor if that will please God. He is willing in his spirit, however wealthy he may be, to give everything up to God and to live in poverty.

Let us suppose that God gives a man a fine estate; he has a comfortable income, and everything is going well for him and his family. Yes, he says, it’s true that God in his mercy has given me all this, but I’m ready to part with it and to live on bread and water all my days if he calls for it. I’m ready to live in destitution as deep as the poorest person in the world, to lay aside all my pomp, riches, and glory and to live like the lowest beggar if by that the Lord gets any honor from me.

That’s someone who is truly poor in spirit!

I do not, however, refer to those who voluntarily live in poverty; God does not call for this, but whenever he calls for your property, or any comforts you have, you should be willing to lay them down at his feet. He wants us to manage our estates well while we have them and to be willing to part with them at his call. That much he requires of everyone.

If you have properties, savings, and revenues, are you ready to accept their loss rather than deny the least truth of God? Rather than commit some sin against your conscience, would you let it all go? If so, then this is to be poor in spirit in the midst of all your abundance.

To be poor in spirit is to glorify God when I am brought to poverty. This includes both those who are willing to be poor if God wills and those who are already poor.  The latter may find a poverty in spirit that corresponds to their financial poverty, that is, they may lay their spirits flat before God and be willing to praise him in the situation that he has given them. They do not envy others who are better off.  They do not grumble against God, asking why he dispenses his gifts so unevenly, so that some men have a vast surplus and others so little.  Rather they say, God by his providence made me poor; and, Lord, here I am, and I submit to you. I’m content to glorify you in my poverty and to apply myself to whatever tasks you’ve assigned me.

Many poor people think. Make me as rich as others, and then I’ll glorify God; and all the while they vex themselves, fret, and look for dishonest ways to get by. Well, if they cannot bring themselves to glorify the Lord just as they are now, they never will. If you are submissive to God in poverty, then blessed are the poor in spirit. And this disposition of yours to be willing to praise God in your distress is better than if God had made you ruler of a parish or even of a kingdom.

Blessed are the poor in spirit does not refer to those who seem to be poor, judging from their self-descriptions, facial expressions, and postures. Many complain about their lot, saying that they are weak, poor, vile, and capable of nothing; and yet God knows their hearts are haughty and proud, so much so that, if others would speak of them as they speak of themselves, they could not bear it! Therefore, though they call themselves poor, yet they are not so in spirit. They seem to be very humble, as if there were no other pride but in fine clothes and fancy possessions, but the main pride is the pride of men’s spirits.

The poor in spirit are truly aware of their spiritual poverty. This is a great point, the main point, and therefore I will expand on it below, showing what this spiritual poverty is.

Concerning his spiritual standing, someone knows himself as a very poor person in the following ways:

Such a person sees that he lacks, in and of himself, anything spiritual that might do him good with reference to God and his own happiness; he sees this just as clearly as a poor man sees his rags.A man literally in rags says to himself, I don’t have the necessities that others take for granted. Similarly, one who is correspondingly poor in spirit says to God, Lord, I haven’t got a trace of the spiritual life that might have made me close to you and acceptable to you, of what might have brought me eternal life. And he says, Now that makes me a poor man! Though I have a good standing in the world and outward comforts for my family, what do I have in reference to you, to the infinite glorious Lord of all things? Without your support, I’m completely deprived. No one was ever as poor, without a rag to cover him, as I am in my spiritual condition.

How I wish to meet a man who has the riches of the world and yet sees himself to be a miserable, poor, and ruined fellow! Such men are scarce as hens’ teeth.

Such a man comprehends the spiritual evils that plague him. He says, I not only don’t have goodness and spiritual life, but I do have all the corresponding evils. What shamefulness in my mind, the darkness of it! How opposed my will and heart are to God, and what corruptions there are in my soul! What vermin creep about me continually!

There is no misery that financially poor people endure, but those who are spiritually poor see the corresponding misery within themselves—that is, as they are in themselves and without God’s help.

Similarities between financial and spiritual poverty

Let us examine an example of someone deep in financial poverty. He is not only unemployed but ill and unable to work. He has no friend to help him pay the bills, and his character is so bad that he will never persuade anyone to help. His creditors have descended upon him and are unrelenting, offering him no chance to pay later. Even if he were given enough financial help to settle his present debts, yet because he must live on as a continual charity case, he will never stand on his own feet again. If this is not poverty, then what is?

It is like this for you who are spiritually poor: you can do nothing to extricate yourself. No friend can help you with spiritual poverty, and do you think God will help? Why, he is a stranger to you, and you have no claim on him. If you go without his grace, you must not look to him for aid. You are his enemy, so says the Bible, one of those who are strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12).  What of your character? Though it may pass in the eyes of the world, yet, being a sinner, you cannot have the pure and holy character that will induce God to grant you the slightest respect.  Neither do his angels respect you, supposing they could do you any good. We are naturally worthless people, and that aggravates our poverty.

What hope is there for the future? God is resolved that no soul shall ever be acceptable to him until his absolute justice shall be satisfied. Every bit of the massive sin-debt must be paid and paid now. Furthermore, if God were to cover the debt for you, yet you, having nothing in and of yourself, would require more of such divine grace right away—and that continued every moment. You must live on in continual dependence on him.

This then is the depth of our spiritual poverty. Those who are poor in spirit acknowledge it.

Who are the poor in spirit whom God blesses?

Someone truly poor in spirit is aware that, even if God by his grace has made him spiritually mature, he is still spiritually poor. I mean, as I have said, that no Christian can live without a continual fresh supply of grace. The godliest man in the world must go daily and continually to Christ to fetch more or he cannot subsist.

He knows that the spiritual graces he has received from God are slight, so slight that he hardly knows whether he has sanctifying righteousness or not.  Your spirituality is like a little spark wrapped up in a heap of embers, so that she who tends the hearth is raking a good while before she can see it.

Someone poor in spirit knows that all his duties and services to God amount to little. How unworthy they are to be presented to our infinite, great, and glorious Lord!

Such people are spiritually poor and weak even at their best, considering how mingled their virtues are with evil and corruption. Their service to God is so feeble that, if Christ had not saved them with his righteousness, he would cast it all like filth back in their faces. This is true even if we speak of the best people in the world.

Minor temptations overcome them, or at least unsettle and disconcert them. Though some do not have such poor spirits as I spoke of before, so as to be led like fools by every evil into temptation and ruin, yet they have spirits poor enough that small temptations ambush them. For example, it may be that you have been in warm private prayer with God, and coming serenely out of your bedroom, you see something wrong in your family that stirs you up again.

They have little ability to help others. There are very few godly people that can do more than (in a spiritual sense) tread water. Their limit is to live and maintain their peace with God, and few manage to be useful to others among whom they live. What an effort many godly people make just to maintain a steady spiritual level. Financially poor people who live from hand to mouth think, Although I have bread now, I don’t know how I’ll manage tomorrow or next week. Surely I’ll come to beggary one day.  So too are the thoughts of the spiritually poor concerning the bread of holiness.

Having considered all this, you may well say, These aspects of their poverty don’t make them blessed, but are part of their misery. True, but they are blessed who are fully and apprehensively aware of this spiritual poverty of theirs—for there are few who take it to heart.

Therefore, so that you may understand who the blessed one is that Christ speaks of, consider the thoughts of someone who is aware of his spiritual poverty. Here are the particulars:

Someone truly poor in spirit, so as to be blessed, sees himself as low and sinful. He perhaps says, God has raised me above others to live comfortably in the world, but what’s my spiritual status? Though I’m richer than others, how many needy servants of God honor him more in one day than I do in a month, or maybe a year? Or seven years! This is a man poor in spirit who is pronounced blessed. Worldly people are puffed up with what should make them ashamed; but a grace-filled person sees humbling evidence even in his best—even in his love, knowledge, and faith.

He is untroubled if he does not receive the honors that others do. I’ve no cause for envy, he says. "Instead I should marvel at what I do have. It’s not for me to expect the rewards others get, since I’m a sinful person, a poor example of a Christian.  A man down on his luck, whose heart is subdued by his financial poverty, when he see others who are well-off in the world, may say, That’s all right for them, but it isn’t meant for me." So it is for the poor in spirit.

One who is poor in spirit is one who is surprised by every little good he receives, that it is as much as that, and is very thankful; and at every affliction he wonders how God lays his hand so tenderly upon him, so lightly. This is quite contrary to the world: they are troubled that their afflictions are so much, and their mercies so little.  Beggars whose spirits are subdued are thankful to be given a penny; so a poor-spirited man or woman is thankful for anything that God gives.

A poor-spirited man is a praying man, a beggar before God, who is often begging for alms from him. None are truly poor in spirit but those who pray greatly. God always hears them and never wearies of such beggars. In Proverbs 18:23 we read, The poor man utters supplications. The Lord does not much listen to men who can live without prayer, going day after day without seeking him.  These have become wealthy and upper-class, numbering among the many degenerates of our times! They scorn and condemn duty to God and think that they are grown so rich, and have so much comfort and assurance of God’s grace, that they do not have the needs others have. But while they are so flush and high, blessed are the poor. Those often begging at God’s throne of grace are those he hears, and they are his blessed ones.

The poor in spirit esteem God’s free grace. Whatever they have they acknowledge as charity from God; and they take no credit for their accomplishments, though they do as much as anyone.

Someone poor in spirit is emptied of himself. Whatever he has within himself, or whatever he does, he dares not rely on it for his spiritual and eternal good, but is set free, so to speak, from himself. He looks on himself as bankrupt, absolutely broke with respect to what he is, has, or can do. So he who is emptied of himself and of every created thing, and who is prepared to trust only in grace from God, is the poor-spirited man who is blessed. So you have it in Psalms 10:14, The unfortunate commits himself to Thee. He does not dare trust in his own wisdom for guidance in any of his affairs, but especially not for guiding him in the great affairs that concern his eternal good. In Zephaniah 3:12 the Scripture says that the Lord would leave among you a humble and lowly people, and they will take refuge in the name of the Lord.

It is human nature for a man to always be seeking to have some righteousness of his own; and yet that is the very reason that men can have no comfort from God. You whose conscience has been awakened feel anxious until you are able to perform religious duties and overcome corruptions. You will not come, as it were, as a mere beggar to God, but you want to bring him some offering. Still the Lord insists that you come as a beggar, as one who has nothing at all, and lie down flat before him, stripped even of your rags; for, you know, many poor people are proud of their very rags.

So it is with people in general; though they have nothing but their self-made ‘righteousness,’ yet they will be proud even of such rags as that. Now the Lord will strip you of all, and make you come naked before him and be willing to live on his