Beek’s detailed study of devotional literature in the Puritans. His focus was on new
vocabulary, which among the Puritans included many variations on love language,
rather than that which was already in common usage. Williams appears to miss van
Beek’s intent, which was to research only new terms originating within Puritanism.^12
The first source that Ambrose employed as any good Puritan would was Scripture and
the Song of Songs which had long been the preeminent book for illustrating the
spiritual life and imagery for growing in intimacy with Christ.^13 While the Geneva
Bible first published in 1560 continued to exert great influence throughout much of
the first half and, in some situations, even later parts of the seventeenth-century, the
Authorized Version or King James Bible became available in 1611.^14 However, the
Puritan usage of versions was extremely fluid and could often include a mixture of the
Geneva and Authorized Versions and preachers trained in the original languages
would occasionally translate their own passages. Another factor that contributed to
this fluidity was the practice of some pastors to quote Scripture from memory.^15
Ambrose used the Authorized Version as his translation of leb which is a hapax
logemena in Song of Songs 4:9; “[t]hou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse;
thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.” The
annotations created by various ecclesiastical bodies further extend this definition.
The Dutch Annotations based upon the original translation of the Synod of Dort
renders this phrase from Canticles 4:9 as “[t]hou hast taken my heart from me” and
(^12) Compare van Beek, (^) Inquiry into Puritan Vocabulary (^) , 5, 66, 71 with Williams,
“Puritan Enjoyment of God,” 209n213. 13
See McGinn, “With “the Kisses of the Mouth”; Turner, Eros and Allegory; Coffey,
“Letters by Samuel Rutherford,” 14 104 - 5; and Hambrick-Stowe, Practice of Piety, 28.
Danner reports that both Lancelot Andrewes and Joseph Hall used the Geneva Bible
until at least 1624. “Later English Calvinists and Geneva Bible,” 502. Betteridge
asserts the same for John Bunyan who was writing forty years later. “Bitter Notes:
Geneva Annotations,” 59. (^15) Gordis, Opening Scripture (^) , 25-6.