Isaac Ambrose’s Teaching on Meditation
Ambrose begins his teaching on meditation with this definition, “[m]editation
is a stedfast bending of the mind to some spiritual matter, discoursing of it with our
selves, till we bring the same to some profitable issue.”^8 This definition closely
parallels the description of Bishop Joseph Hall in his classic, The Arte of Divine
Meditation, “[m]editation is nothing else but a bending of the mind upon some
spirituall object, through divers formes of discourse, untill our thoughts come to an
issue.”^9 Bishop Hall’s influence upon Ambrose and other Puritans will be examined
shortly. Both of these definitions of meditation emphasize the mind, but that was
hardly the full picture. Ambrose elsewhere defines “[m]editation is as the bellows of
the soul, that doth kindle and inflame holy affections.”^10 Downame reiterates this
intensity of meditation asserting, “[i]t inflameth our love towards God and all
spirituall and heavenly things.”^11 More expansively, for meditation to accomplish its
maximum good Edmund Calamy taught that it must enter through three doors; the
“door of the understanding”... the “door of thy heart and of thy affections”... and the
“door of thy conversations” for proper Christian living.^12 Interestingly Ambrose
employs the same analogy of eating that was common among medieval monks
proclaiming a person should “ruminate, and chew the cud.”^13 Calamy expands the
same language, declaring, “a meditating Christian is one that chews the cud” and that
(^8) Ambrose, Media (^) (1657), 216. (^)
(^9) Joseph Hall, Arte of Divine Meditation, 7.
(^10) Ambrose, Media (1657), 392.
(^11) Downame, Guide to Godlynesse, 544. Thomas Hooker likewise declares, “[s]o
meditation is like fire, the heart is like a vessell, the heart is made for God, and it may
be made a vessell of grace here, and of glory hereafter.” Soules Preparation for
Christ 12 , 113.
13 Calamy, Ambrose, Art of Divine MeditationLooking Unto Jesus, 469., 28.