with strong and heavenly affections of love, joy and desire.”^132 While Ambrose does
not use the language of sweetness in relationship to ravishment as frequently as
Flavel, he does use it abundantly in his writings.^133 Finally, the sense of smell and
touch are used only once each.^134 Ravishment exerts an overwhelming power on the
senses. According to the Westminster Annotations ravishment burns “hotly in love,
whose strange force it is to transvulnerate and stupifie the very soule, so as no sense
nor reason is left.”^135 This parallels Cuthbert Butler’s conclusion that in ecstasy the
mind is often separated or alienated from the body.^136 However, it is the common
opinion of Puritan authors that “in ecstasies, all the senses and powers are idle, except
the understanding.”^137 Therefore, when believers experienced ravishment God “did
not bypass the natural faculties, but was worked through the mind and affections.”^138
Benefits and Effects of Ravishment
My analysis of the effects of ravishment yields four general categories of
benefits; a sense of knowledge or new awareness from the experience of God,
assurance or confidence of some promise or blessing of God, greater desire to seek or
long after God, and the delight of enjoyment of God. In Looking Unto Jesus
Ambrose provides a vivid illustration of how ravishment can create a new sense of
knowledge or awareness. Significantly the nature of this knowledge can vary and
take on many different expressions from awareness of human rebellion, to the
amazing depth of Jesus’ love and his ravishment by the Church, to how to live and
(^132) Ambrose, Media (^) (1657), 482. (^)
(^133) See for example Flavel, England’s Duty, 215, 220, 223.
(^134) Ambrose, Looking Unto Jesus, 907, 34.
(^135) Westminster Annotations, Sg 4:9 n.p.
(^136) Bulter, Western Mysticism, 51.
(^137) Flavel, Soul of Man, 55 and Williams, “Puritan Enjoyment of God,” 117-8 where
she provides examples from Owen and Sibbes to verify this Puritan understanding. (^138) Williams, “Puritan Enjoyment of God,” 118.