affections [would not become] disordered.”^106 The senses are also important in
Ambrose’s anthropology serving as the “windows of our soul.”^107 Moreover Ambrose
shared the common awareness held by Bernard and others before him that the
faculties, marred by sin, required regeneration.^108 Ambrose recognized that
contemplation and looking unto Jesus restored the faculties until they reached an
excellency through glorification in heaven.^109
Further, the imagination functions in relationship with the faculties of the soul
and is a significant theme in understanding Ambrose’s practice of meditation.^110
Imagination has the potential to reconstruct passages of Scripture so that a person can
relive that experience and deepen the understanding and affections of that event.
Ambrose illustrates this in relationship to Jesus’ post Easter visitations to his
disciples, “[m]ethinks I see Thomas’s finger on Christ’s boared hand, and Thomas’s
hand in Christs pierced side. Here’s a strong argument to convince my soul that
Christ is risen from the dead.”^111 The imagination has the potential to convince a
person’s soul of some event or message. In Ultima, Ambrose often employs the
106
on this subject is Fenner, Ambrose, Ultima in Prim Treatise of Affectionsa, Media, Ultima (1654), 19. The best Puritan treatment. Fenner declares that when the
affections are “inordinate” it makes a person the “worlds spouse and the devils
spouse.” 107 Treatise of Affections, 46.
108 Ambrose, Media (1657), 50. cf. War with Devils, 57.^
Ambrose, Prima in Prima, Media, Ultima (1654), 8. cf. McGinn, Growth of
Mysticism 109 , 201 and Sommerfledt, Spiritual Teachings of Bernard, 242-5.
110 Ambrose, Little has beenLooking Unto Jesus written on this important topic. For a helpful summary see Evans, , 1094.^
“Puritan Use of Imagination,” 47-88 and La Shell, “Imagination and Idol,” 305-334.
While Kaufmann addresses this topic frequently in Pilgrim’s Progress in Puritan
Meditation his misreading of the Puritans mars his research. See Knott, Sword of the
Spirit, 68; Lewalski, Protestant Poetics, 150; Beeke, “Puritan Practice Meditation,”
77; and Chan, “Puritan Meditative Tradition,” 91. 111
Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus, 766. Ambrose frequently uses this formula of
“methinks I see [or] imagine [or] hear”. etc. Looking Unto Jesus, 949, 964,1102, 1142,