have of God in Heaven, like the Angels beholding of the face of God; Meditation is
like the kindling of fire, and Contemplation more like the flaming of it when fully
kindled: The one is like the Spouses seeking of Christ, and the other like the Spouses
enjoying of Christ.”^4 Significantly both Downame and White appear among the list
of experimental writers that Ambrose endorses.^5 This suggests that Ambrose was
likely familiar with the distinctions between these two practices.
While some were careful to distinguish between meditation and contemplation
there was also a blurring of linguistic lines in both the Roman Catholic and Puritan
writings. Richard Baxter illustrates this from the Puritan perspective asserting, “[t]he
general title that I give this duty is meditation; not as it is precisely distinguished from
thought, consideration, and contemplation; but as it is taken in the larger and usual
sense for thinking on things spiritual, and so comprehending consideration and
contemplation.”^6 Ignatius of Loyola is representative of the Roman Catholic
conflation of these terms.^7 Bernard could also use these terms in a confusing manner.
Since these words are occasionally interchanged and further since meditation is often
the means towards which a person experiences God in a contemplative manner it is
necessary to first explore Ambrose’s understanding and practice of meditation.
4
White, Method of Divine Meditation, 4-5. Thomas Manton makes a similar
distinction declaring, “[c]ontemplation is the fruit and perfection of meditation.... In short, contemplation is a ravishing sight without discourse, the work of reason not
discoursing, but raised and ecstasied into the highest way of apprehension.” Sermons
Upon Genesis 24:63 5 , 293.
6 Ambrose, Media (1657), To the Reader, [7].^
7 Baxter, Saints’ Everlasting Rest, 296.^
Ganss, Ignatius of Loyola: Spiritual Exercises, 136, 402; Martz, Poetry of
Meditation 16 - 20; Keith Egan “Contemplation.” s.v., 211-2. cf. 432; Shannon,
“Contemplation, Contemplative Prayer.” s.v., 209; and McGinn, Mysticism, 386. Growth of