Puritan preacher’s role in conversion, “[p]reachers meant to unsettle their audiences
by driving home the enormity of sin.”^145 Ambrose perceptively recognized that a
troubled conscience was receptive for conversion. On November 29, 1647 he reports,
This night I was told that Mistris E.D. was upon my Prayer the last Fast
troubled in Conscience; and that since she had much talked of me, and desired to see me, but her Companion concealing it, she now apprehended the time
was past, and utterly despaired: I sent for her, and at her first entrance into my
Chamber, she cryed, O that face! I dare not look on it! Shall such a lost
creature as I look upon thee?-- Had I seen thee yesternight, I might have been
saved; but now I am lost[,] time is past; -- O terrors of the Lord are upon me,
&c. yet after she was pleased to hear me pray: And then I advised her, search out her sin-- To submit to the Lord, to wonder at Gods mercy, that yet to
she lived, and was on this side Hell.^146
The uniqueness of this account compared with the previous examples is that this is the
only occasion in which Ambrose requested that the person meet him in his study.
Perhaps being a Barnabas prompted the soul physician to visit the person in his or her
own familiar setting, while the more challenging practice of being a Boenerges was
conducted in the minister’s chamber where he had more authority and advantage.
The final outcome of this visit is unknown, but Ambrose offers these additional
details, “[s]he spake sensibly, acknowledging God to be righteous, That she deserved
the state she was in: yet promised to yield, and to be quiet under Gods hand, and to
search out her sins: so for that time we parted.” Unfortunately, that was the last time
Ambrose saw her. He later learned that this woman suffered a “deep melancholy”
and was taken by her friend to Ireland.^147 This is a reminder that a soul physician is
not the only person who might influence the outcome of a conflicted relationship.
Due to the lack of further details it is difficult to determine how Ambrose experienced
(^145) Cohen, God’s Caress (^) , 169, cf. 170 The purpose of spiritual terror was to activate (^)
sinners. 146
147 Ambrose, Ambrose, MediaMedia (1650), 77. (1650), 77-^ 78.