himself.”^32 Therefore, with sensitivity to these concerns I will examine some of the
personal experiences that Ambrose recorded.
The writings of Isaac Ambrose breathe with the inspired pulse of a person
who has experienced the love and joy of God. He urges his readers, “[l]abour so to
know Christ, as to have a practical and experimental knowledge of Christ in his
influences, and not meerly a notional [one].” Puritans stressed this message
repeatedly because they knew people could receive “some notional, speculative brain
knowledge of Jesus Christ, but they are not changed, their hearts are not over-
powered.”^33 Ambrose was interested in changed hearts, beginning with himself. He
asserts in his opening words to Media, “I have writ nothing, but in some measure I
have, by the Lords assistance, practiced the same, and felt the comfort of it in my own
heart and soul.”^34 Illustrative of this Ambrose names the writers who nourished his
own soul in the beginning of Media, “Angier, Ash, Ball, Baxter, Bolton, Burroughs,
Burges, Byfield, Downham, Dyke, Goodwin, Gouge, Hooker, Leigh, Mason, Rogers,
Shepherd, Torshel, White, & c.”^35
Ambrose, like Christians for hundreds of years before him, sought to prepare
and cultivate his heart through the use of spiritual disciplines, or duties, as he
preferred to call them. While some resisted these practices due to the influence of
antinomianism he stresses their importance. Further, Ambrose recognizes from
(^32) Packer, Quest for Godliness (^) , 215, 216.
(^33) Ambrose, War with Devils, 87, 88.
(^34) Ambrose, Media (1657), To the Reader [8].
(^35) Ambrose, Media (1657), To the Reader [7]. A comparative review indicates that
Burroughs was added in the second edition and Baxter in the third edition. This
reveals Ambrose’s continual desire to be expanding hwritings. is awareness of experimental