studying his own heart that the intentional choices that he makes to engage them reaps
rich dividends in his relationship with God. Spiritual duties are “[b]ridges to give
them a passage to God, as Boats to carry them into the bosom of Christ.” Ambrose
cautions his readers that there is nothing unique about these practices and great care
must be exercised so as not to use them to bargain with God. He stresses that these
duties are a source of delight and joy “because in Duties they come to see the face of
God in Christ: Hence Duties are called The face or presence of God.”^36 Further,
practicing them brings a portion of heaven to that person, “[h]ence they who meet
with God in duty, usually finde their hearts sweetly refreshed, as if Heaven were in
them.”^37 Puritans typically divided spiritual duties into the categories of secret,
private, and public.^38 Secret duties described the individual’s personal spiritual
practices. Private pertains to a small group of friends invited to your house and public
described the larger gatherings in the church building for spiritual exercises. Since
these duties contained such potential, the Puritans often engaged them with great
intensity.^39
A major component of Ambrose’s spiritual duties and a primary means for his
experience of God were his annual month-long retreats in May. Edmund Calamy
comments upon Ambrose’s pattern, “’[t]was his usual Custom once in a Year, for the
space of a Month to retire into a little Hut in a Wood, and avoiding all Humane
Converse to devote himself to Contemplation.”^40 This practice appears to have been
(^36) Ambrose, Media (^) (1657), 33. (^)
(^37) Ambrose, Media (1657), 34.
(^38) Ambrose, Media (1657), t.p., and 42. cf. Westminster Directory for Family-
Worship 39 , subtitle.
The devotional intensity of the Puritans will be examined in chapter 4. See
especially page 194. (^40) Matthews, Calamy Revised (^) , 9.