theological reflection on Ambrose’s writings or spiritual practices. Benjamin
Nightingale (1854-1928), another nonconformist pastor who like Ambrose served in
the town of Preston, displayed a special appreciation for Ambrose. Nightingale was
strongly dependent upon Halley for much of his material but he did expand the
historical details of both church politics and Ambrose’s family background. His
assessment regarding Ambrose’s piety also parallels that of Halley, declaring that he
was ‘[o]f a retiring disposition, his mind of the contemplative order, he was in true
sense a religious mystic.”^121 Additionally Nightingale provides one example of the
continued interest in Ambrose’s writings in the latter portion of the seventeenth-
century.^122 But similar to Halley, Nightingale does not study the theology or the
dynamics of the spiritual practices of Ambrose. Gordon Wakefield in his significant
study Puritan Devotion was the first scholar to pay attention to Ambrose’s style of
meditation.^123 However, his treatment is very brief and focuses more on the
background and structure of Looking Unto Jesus than it does to the experiential piety
that might result from this approach. Wakefield reiterates the conclusion of both
Halley and Nightingale describing Ambrose as a “Lancashire Nonconformist of
contemplative disposition.”^124
Milo Kaufmann introduces a significant transition, being the first literary critic
to display an interest in Ambrose.^125 Kaufmann traces the development of Puritan
meditation according to two streams, one more formal approach reflected by Bishop
Joseph Hall and the second more imaginative focused on heavenly meditation of
(^121) Nightingale, Isaac Ambrose, Religious Mystic (^) , 20.
(^122) Nightingale, Isaac Ambrose, Religious Mystic, 26-7.
(^123) Wakefield, Puritan Devotion, 88, 96-8.
(^124125) Wakefield, Puritan Devotion, xiii.
Kaufmann, Pilgrim’s Progress and Puritan Meditation.