the soul.”^2 None of this happens without the active involvement of the Spirit of God.
Clearly, Ambrose understood spiritual marriage as the means for growing in Christ
and also enjoying all of Christ’s benefits. This chapter examines Ambrose’s
experience of growing his “soul with Christ” through the use of the Spiritual
Movement Matrix. This tool from contemporary spiritual direction traces the
movement of a person’s experience of God through the various dimensions of life
including the intrapersonal, interpersonal, structural, and environmental. A careful
review of his writings will reveal an abundance of mystical texts, mystical
vocabulary, and robust mystic experiences. Contemplation is the common thread that
unites all of these varied experiences into a revealing biography of Isaac Ambrose’s
piety.
During the seventeenth-century contemplation was defined as “the action of
beholding, or looking at with attention and thought.”^3 Similarly Ambrose declares,
“[w]hat, shall he ascend, and shall not we in our contemplations follow after him?
gaze, O my soul, on this wonderful object, thou needest not feare any check from God
or Angel, so that thy contemplation be spiritual and divine.”^4 In Media he combines
the importance of contemplation with love and the experience of God’s presence and
joyfully asserts; “[w]hat happinesse of a glorified Saint, but that he is alwayes under
the line of love, ever in the contemplation of, and converses with God, and shall that
be thought our burthen here, which is our glory hereafter?”^5. Later he raises some
questions of practical divinity and asks, “[w]hat are the signes of a sincere love to
(^2) Ambrose, Prima (^) (Appendix) in (^) Prima, Media & Ultima (1654), 66-7.
(^3) OED, 17:811. Henry Cockeram defines it similarly, “a beholding in ones mind.”
English Dictionarie 4 , n.p.
(^5) Ambrose, Ambrose, MediaLooking Unto Jesus (1657), 34. , 871-2.^