This is the opening of my paper at the recent Westminster Conference, which will hopefully be printed with the papers in due time.
We begin back in May, 1651. The Wars of the three kingdoms are drawing to a close and Cromwell is heading back to London, his Scottish campaign completed.
We focus on a small wooden hut in an extensive wood somewhere in the north of England. (1) In the hut is the man we want to consider, Isaac Ambrose. At this time he is about 46. He wears the dark clothing typical of a Christian minister of the time. Fairly slight in build, he is a little taller perhaps than the average for the day (5' 6”). His hair touches his collar and on his head he wears a dark skull cap. His greying beard is small and neat, occupying his chin with a thin line above his upper lip. His look is sober and serious but a kindliness in his eyes suggests he is an approachable man. (2)
Sometimes he speaks aloud, sometimes not. He has a book with him and a means of writing. What is he doing? He is praying and meditating according to a method he share in his work Media. We know some of the things that he wrote at such times because, while his “register of God's dealing towards him and of his dealings towards God” (3) has not survived, he preserved sample extracts in Media (4)
Ambrose felt that personal experiences with God can be shared with others to encourage them.
The Christian that hath collected experiences, or found out methods, for the advancement of holiness, must not deny such knowledge to the body; Christians must drive an open and free trade, they must teach one another the mystery of godliness … would Christians thus meet and exchange words and notions, they might build up one another, they might heat and inflame one another, they might strengthen and encourage one another, as the brethren did Paul: and have we not an express command for this duty of conference? (5)
In a subsequent edition he varied and reduced the extracts but if we use all editions, there are a significant number of entries to consider. (6)
In 1842 Joseph Hunter wrote of “a pathos and beauty in some of the passages ... which make one wish for more”. (7) Ambrose made much of Canticles 2:11, 12 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, etc, there will I give thee my loves and quotes a favourite writer, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), “The bridegroom of our souls is bashful, and more frequently visits his bride in the solitary places.” (8)
Writing of Christ tempted in the wilderness, he says
In this respect, I know not but the wilderness might be an advantage to Christ’s design. In this solitary place he could not but breathe out more pure inspiration; heaven usually is more open and God usually more familiar and frequent in his visits in such places. I know not what others’ experiences may be but if I have found anything of God, or of his grace, I may thank a wood, a wilderness, a desert, a solitary place, for its accommodation and have I not a blessed pattern here before me? (9)
Wheaton academic Tom Schwanda has studied Ambrose extensively and wonders if he began “by following the practice of his biblical namesake” (Genesis 24:63). (10)
Over several days he makes these entries
14. In a pleasant wood and sweet walks in it, the Lord moved and enabled me to begin the exercise of secret duties and after the prolegomena, or duties in general, I fell on that duty of watchfulness. The Lord then gave me to observe my former negligence and to make some resolutions. I found the Lord sweet to me in the conclusion of the duty. Hallelujah!
15. (am) I fell on the duty of self-trial and ... confessed my sins before and since conversion, wherein the Lord sweetly melted my heart. (pm) I perused my diary for the last year, wherein are many passages of mercies from God, and troubles for sin, etc.
16. (am) I went through the duty of experiences, and felt some stirrings of God's Spirit in my soul. (pm) I fell on the duty of evidences, when I acted faith, and found my evidences clear. Oh how sweet was my God!
17. (am) I meditated on the love of Christ, wherein Christ appeared, and melted my heart in many sweet passages. (pm) I meditated on eternity of hell and on eternity of heaven, wherein the Lord both melted and cheered and warmed and refreshed my soul. Surely the touches of God's Spirit are as sensible as any outward touches. Hallelujah!
We have no record for some days but other entries follow
22. Occasionally, though not in course, I fell on some parts of the duty of self-denial: the Lord in mercy wrought in my soul some suitableness to that spiritual gospel-duty; Lord, keep this fire up in a flame still. Oh it is a sweet, but a very hard lesson.
31. I practised (as the Lord enabled) the duty of saints' sufferings; into which condition as I was cast, so the Lord gave me to see my sin and to bewail it and to pray for the contrary, grace and God's favour. The Lord was sweet to me in the preparations to, but especially in the improving of, sufferings. Now the Spirit left in my soul a sweet scent and savour behind ... (11)
Edmund Calamy tells us it was Ambrose's “usual custom once in a year, for the space of a month to retire into a little hut in a wood, and avoiding all human converse to devote himself to contemplation.”(12) Every May he would retire to woods near Hoghton Tower and the River Darwen near Preston or to Weddicre (Wood acre) Woods near Garstang and spend the month praying, meditating and seeking God.
The first retreat it appears was in May, 1641. A May 20, 1646 entry gives an example of the sort of framework followed and tells how he experienced God.
I came to Weddicre, which I did upon mature resolution, every year about that pleasant Spring time (if the Lord pleased) to retire myself and in some solitary and silent place to practice especially the secret duties of a Christian. In this place are sweet silent woods and therein this month, and part of the next, the Lord by his Spirit wrought in me evangelical repentance for sin, gave me sweet comforts and spiritual refreshings in my commerce and intercourse with him, by prayer and meditation and self examination, and discovered to me the causes of my many troubles and discouragements in my ministry, whereupon I prayed more fervently, pressed the Lord with his promises, set his power and wisdom and mercy on work; and so waited and believed, till the Lord answered every petition and I could not but observe his hand in it. This was a comfortable time to my soul. (13)
Schwanda says his practice was unusual, especially for a married man with children though it was perhaps more common then for men to be away from home for long periods. (14)
Footnotes
6 Tom Schwanda, PhD
Soul
Recreation: Spiritual Marriage and Ravishment in the
Contemplative-Mystical Piety of Isaac Ambrose (published
as Soul
Recreation: the Contemplative-Mystical Piety of Puritanism)
135. Entries vary over the editions with
1650 containing the most; the last two identical. The May 1651
entries are replaced by shorter, alternatives. He also greatly
reduced examples in his experiences section
as not all previous material was
edifying.
