William Ames was an English Protestant divine, philosopher, and controversialist. He spent much time in the Netherlands, and is noted for his involvement in the controversy between the Calvinists and the Arminians.
Active creation is conceived as a transitive action in which there is always presupposed an object about which the agent is concerned; it is virtually but not formally transitive because it makes, not presupposes, an object.
Although the whole man partakes of this grace, it is first and most appropriately in the soul and later progresses to the body, inasmuch as the body of the man is capable of the same obedience to the will of God as the soul.
An idea in man is first impressed upon him and afterwards expressed in things, but in God it is only expressed, not impressed, because it does not come from anywhere else.
Everyone who understands the nature of God rightly necessarily knows that God is to be believed and hoped in, that he is to be loved and called upon, and to be heard in all things.
From faith, hope, and love, the virtues of religion referring to God, there arises a double act which bears on the spiritual communion exercised between God and us; the hearing of the word and prayer.
