AMBROSE, ISAAC (1604-1663/4), English Puritan divine,
was the son of Richard Ambrose, vicar of Ormskirk, and was
probably descended from the Ambroses of Lowick in Furness,
a well-known Catholic family. He entered Brazenose College,
Oxford, in 1621, in his seventeenth year. Having graduated
B.A. in 1624 and been ordained, he received in 1627 the
little cure of Castleton in Derbyshire. By the influence
of William Russell, earl of Bedford, he was appointed one
of the king's itinerant preachers in Lancashire, and after
living for a time in Garstang, he was selected by the Lady
Margaret Hoghton as vicar of Preston. He associated himself
with Presbyterianism, and was on the celebrated committee
for the ejection of "scandalous and ignorant ministers
and schoolmasters" during the Commonwealth. So long as
Ambrose continued at Preston he was favoured with the warm
friendship of the Hoghton family, their ancestral woods and
the tower near Blackburn affording him sequestered places
for those devout meditations and "experiences" that give
such a charm to his diary, portions of which are quoted
in his Prima Media and Ultima (1650, 1659). The immense
auditory of his sermon (Redeeming the Time) at the funeral
of Lady Hoghton was long a living tradition all over the
county. On account of the feeling engendered by the civil
war Ambrose left his great church of Preston in 1654, and
became minister of Garstang, whence, however, in 1662 he
was ejected with the two thousand ministers who refused to
conform. His after years were passed among old friends and
in quiet meditation at Preston. He died of apoplexy about
the 20th of January 1663/4. As a religious writer Ambrose
has a vividness and freshness of imagination possessed by
scarcely any of the Puritan Nonconformists. Many who have
no love for Puritan doctrine, nor sympathy with Puritan
experience, have appreciated the pathos and beauty of his
writings, and his Looking to Jesus long held its own in
popular appreciation with the writings of John Bunyan.
Initial text from 1911 encyclopedia -- Please update as needed