Ambrose and Classis 2023

Ambrose and Classis

 

At the time, not only was Isaac Ambrose putting last touches to the various of his writings, as ……started in the midst of the turmoil, but he is fulfilling his duties as a land .of the Classis of Lancashire. Such were shire-wide bodies of minister of local ministers of the Gospel, and that of Lancashire and of  other shires. The minister was in the most, but also were gents who had a place, wealthy, landed and involved. According to Shaw’s account.

 

 like Scots , and to King Charles II,  Lancashire was much nearer to Presbyterian Scotland, than to that of London in South England. And the classes  were gathering similar minister in different localities, distinct from congregational churches e.g. I shall Thomas Jollie ,the Westminster Assembly, a preeminent Presbyterian movement as well some including  congregationalists, and some Anglican, were coming to an end with  their Confession and Catechisms also in London, for active presbyterians  and settled by the House of Commons. Not as episcopacy, hierarchal, and central to the local congregations in groups. though   Besides the others  there were the  independents of long standing such as Philip Nye, W. Gouge, and T. Watson were already independents as ministers in London and areas such as Lancashire. They were allied to the scots such as Baillie who were against the Independents because the independents stopped the members as being one hundred percent Presbyterians. These are classic presbyterian, not those who had been accepted hem as historic Anglicanism. The  other presbyterians were classic presbyterian. ‘A ‘classic’ group118f. centred in Lancaster. For the model is not episcopacy but  in as we say, laity. The members of the various laity,  stems from the Manchester classis members who worked in accordance with the provincial assemblies  (1649) This  used them for pastoral duties of the general men. From 1657. The member of classes made up from local congregation – the response of the law of the

The provincial assembly (125)  become some have various character.  Shaw says 

 

If a minister within the classis  bounds  may not join the classis whether he  was an Episcopalian at heart , or a professed Independent, like Wigan at Birch in he could treat the orders, and conferences with open defiance and contempt. If a parish would not set up the government, and elect an eldership, its indifference to the classis was invincible, and although presbytery had not  been legislatively dethroned from the position  as the side recognized successor to the preview national Episcopal Church, it was frowned by the civil power, and lacking the support and favour of that civil power it found of that civil power it found itself powerless even in its own domain.(Shaw 125)

 

This gives an eye to the jockeying that went on between Episcopal and Independent and  Reformed individuals. The  questions of literacy or numeracy of  candidates is not researched by Shaw, as far as I can see. It may have been gathered churches were in the of classis. The view of those who favoured a gathered church, such as Thomas Goodwin, had a career before this in the company of the North of England in the company of Rogers `(check)and a noted preacher John Angier, who in turn in the Company of in Isaac Ambrose, a prominent preacher and theologian of the Reformed in a different part of  Lancashire, as we shall see later. Another gathered church `Puritan was Philip  Nye, a member of the Manchester  Provincial Assembly, which had a form of warrant ‘which was sent  round in response  to an order of the Province foe a return upon the subject of the withdrawal of elders from their office, ’it is that in striving.

 

The Ambrose sixth classics were:

Croston parish, Leyland parish, Standish parish, Eccleston parish, Penwortham  parish,, Hoole parish,, and Brindle parish.

The ministers fit to be of the sixth classis - Master James  Hyde of Croston.,Mr Paul Mathom of Standish, Mr Edward Gee of Eccleston, Mr Henry Walch, of Chorley, Mr James Langley of Leyland, Mr Ralph Marsden, of Brindall

 

The last name I hundfeds of covered by Shaw, was Sir Richard Houghton of sixth classes are familiar, who Isaac Ambrose  wrote and who buried his wife in ;Preston, 4^th January 1757, and in whose home were left to notable Puritans, for example John  Howe,  Dr Shaw relates many more of the English classes.

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We are only ever to cover strip sof time, and not how the time in weeks and months of the  period until1660, followed by the death of Isaac Ambrose in 1662. The Calamy  Revised. From 1660, Besides the work of Isaac,  who ‘‘took a prominent part in 7^th, Lancashire some times, several times ‘moderator’. he signed the Consent 1648. While this is obscure but possibly  it is a reference to the first formation  of the Lancashire classis from its inception. Likewise ‘Assistant to  Lancashire Commission 1654. These spell the position of a landed individual, with an active family, reference to Joshua Ambrose. The curate of West Derby , Wilton, Lancs., who was vicar of Childwell 1664-86, and who must have been compliant with the 1660. Also Nehemiah, Curate of Kirkby, Walton, the younger brother of Peter. Both went to Harvard and returns for several years.  The effect of the events of 1660 -1662 is evident in the scattering of the family of Isaac. Other names are known to congregational preachers who  seem to have their nonconformity  more successively. One seems to be John `Angier, who seems to  have speaking of wrote introductory letters  to Isaac Ambrose’s and William Bell’s to the showed their appreciation to asking him to write an introduction to the former’s Media, and the letter’s Patience. Angier was of Denton, Manchester, who without conforming  retained curacy till in death, 1677, .most of the Justices had a great respect for him early to, and some  were nearly to his wife (Margaret, daughter of Oswald Mosley of Ancoats. But the family of the Mosley’s is another tale.

I regret Shaw's book 2 which I could not be find. There is much more to oell.

After 1662?

 

           Isaac Ambrose  

Isaac Ambrose was born in 1554, the son of Richard, the Vicar of Ormskirk. This meant that the Act of Uniformity  in 1662 he must have looked to first hand  to Charles II and the conformity of Anglicanism.  His reaction is going to live in Preston, and was devoted to the written books which we must devoured many hours with the loss of  the tithes of before the Act.  and to those with Reformed kin, These three books, the first, the main one, Looking unto Jesus, seem to have the most popular of writings, a vast text dedicated to The Honourable William Earl of Bedford, Lord Russel, Baron of Thornhaugh. He had other landed individuals, Sir Richard Houghton was one who was judged’ fit to be of’  the Sixth Classis, (more of this later),  and whose funeral  of his wife, LadyMargaret. Isaac Ambrose preached  her  at her funeral, the only such printed and published of such there remains in his writings, taken in Preston in January 1657, still beyond the Ejection.

 These Are the words of his last book, War With Devils , EDINBURGH 1762. Thou hast now my last works  of practical divinity, , that ever I mean to publish to the world ; and. if last words are wont to bear  the greatest weight and to make deepest impression, much more let these last practical lines find some entertainent from thee for thy spiritual good. This (next to Gods's glory) is my chiefest end: and so I leave thee, and the book together, in God's hands:  may his Spirit inspire good motions, when thou readest my directions, and bring them to good issue, is the prayer of, Thy unworthy friend, and Servant in Christ's vineyard, ISAAC AMBROSE.'  

 

Think of it,  over the date of publications that were printed and published In Edinburgh, 1762,  Ambrose’s The Complete Works characterised ‘eminent Minister of God’s Word’, by the printers and publication, and booksellers   Wotherspoon and Martin, of Edinburgh, and at the rear  a List of of about 320 subscribers,  What  would England have been like without  the 1662 Ejection, given a similar arrangement to Edinburgh in all the main English cities of the country?

 

The Ambrose family

 

Two brothers (or cousins) of  Isaac Ambrose were Joshua, after 1662 who became an agent to facilitate (it seems) those attempting to go to New England and who went with Nehemiah another brother, or cousin,  who was son of Peter Ambrose,  the Curate of West Derby, Walton, who had served as curate at Kirkby by Walton and who graduated B.A. Harvard  1653, himself, and who was a Fellow 1654-7,   Both went together to Harvard and came back with these attainments. Their agency was funded by tithes which  further  legislation, to use of the tithes those were used by Nehemiah. Perhaps he was no intention to be a minister there. He had been married at Toxteth  in 1660, to Hannah J.Beadle St. Qlave’s, Old Jewry, London. This lady’s name might have been that of  a daughter of John Beadle, the Nonconformist leader , Rector of Barnston, Essex, who suffered from the days of Archbishop Laud in the 1633’s   and later who had daughters who witnessed the disruption of Presbyterians as the consequences of the Ejection. I am not aware of the relation between Peter Ambrose and Isaac, perhaps brothers..

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 What follows is what we may discover in a third blog about Ambrose, who before 1660  had held  positions of the classis of Lancashire seventh  congregations,  in a form of a presbytery, presumably.  In Shaw’s meticulous of classes in A History of English Church, each classis has ministers and ‘others fit’ (Vol II, 397) lay persons,  together is consisted of nine congregations  and ministers, In the account. Another well-off member were Sir Richard Houghton, who was ‘fit to be’ , i.e. playing the role of a lay adviser,  and whose  widow’s  funeral Lady Margaret Houghton, was in January 1657, at Preston at a time prior to the Act of Uniformity five years enacted , Isaac led, the only case  printed.  The seventh Classis  which  Ambrose who was of  congregations  consisting  of Preston. Kirkham, Garstang, and Poulton, perhaps more.  was several times a moderator of the Lancashire Classis.  Isaac Ambrose at this time was vicar of Garstang(e),  having been earlier vicar of Castleton, Derbyshire, who in 1660 making the time of leaving his vicarage under force  by payment, and in 1662 the Bishop of Chester is mentioned as by made vacant  by their nonconformity. In this period he received and returned  a letter regarding angels to Richard Baxter, November 19, 1661.  London which is in printed in 586-8 under ‘Objections Answered’ of his Complete Works, …and ‘Redeeming the Time, A sermon Preached at Preston in Lancashire, By Isaac Ambrose, 4^th January 1657, Preacher of the Gospel at Preston, at Garstange, in the same County.’ All this would take place Pre-1660. 

 

 The Vicar of Ormskirk, is another village to the south of Garstang.   After 1660, when the tithes of the parishes as deprived Ambrose moved to be vicar of the parish in Preston, Church Weind. It is this that is mentioned that,  of ‘Twas Custom once in a Year, for the space of a Month to retire into a little Hut in a Wood, and avoiding all Humane Converse to devote himself to Contemplation.’ This habit looks to be started in 166o  onwards, living in Preston, but perhaps earlier. Isaac died in 23 Jan 1664.(this paragraph is taken from Calamy Revised  ed. A.G. Matthews, OUP, 1934, p.9.) (what to do is later?)

 

Other dates and details are provided to the reader of The COMPLETE WORKS of that Eminent MINISTER OF `GOD’S Word, that I previously refer to, containing what now follows:

 

 I. PRIMA, MEDIA AND ULTIMA; OR THE FIRST, MIDDLE and LAST THINGS,WHEREIN IS SET FORTH, THE DOCTRINE OF REGENERATION, OR THE NEW BIRTH,

 

 2.OF SANCTIFICATION, IN THE MEANS, DUTIES, AND ORDINANCES, BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, FOR INCREASE AND CONTINUANCE of a GODLY LIFE

 

3.Certain MEDITATIONS ON Man’s Misery in this Life, Death, Judgment; and on Heaven and Hell; As also, on GOD’s Redemption and Salvation

 

A short  ACCOUNT of the LIFE, CHARACTER AND  PRINCIPLES of the  AUTHOR provides some further information

 

Life and death of Nonconformity

 

…...that time was not spent in inactivity by him, but employed to the in the most valuable purpose  for it was he revised and gave the  finishing stroke to the greatest part of his works, and perhaps work on  other part of them; in particular, his discourse concerning angels, which was the last of all these his performances; through which, and through which, and through which, and through all the rest of his works, a runs a constant strain of piety, holy devotion,   and meditation, and fervour of spirit; which very well agreeth with the following  fervour of spirit; which very well  agreeth with the following with character, given of him by very learned and eminent, hand;

 

While speaking of the REV, MR. ISAAC AMBROSE, DR CALAMY’S LIVES, VoL. 2, 409,  he says,” He lived and died a Nonconfirmest, and was of a man of that  of substantial worth, that eminent piety, and that exemplary life as a minister and a Christian, that it is to be lamented the world both  should not have benefit of some particular memoirs concerning him from some able hand.“ …As we have seen, he lived, in the latter  part of his life, at Preston;, and, when his end drew more, he came home to Preston from Bolton, and set things in order. In  a little time some came to Garstang to visit him; after discoursing freely them, and like a man sensible of his death being near, he accompanied them to their horses, and when he came back shut himself up in his parlour, the usual place of his soliloquy, meditation and prayer.  They thought he staid long, and so opened the door,,and found him just expiring. This was in the year 1664, Isaac aged 72. ‘He was holy in his life ,happy in his death, and honoured by God and all good men.’

 

What we see is the scattering effects of the Puritans, their families, not to mention the impoverishment after ejection from parishes while children growing and so on. In the case of the Ambroses, where there was preaching and books, the conditions of Presbyterians and Baptists and the Congregational churches were weakened, and Nonconformity , as a movement, never  recovered,  

 

NOTE: details of the Ambrose family, the letter by Ambrose to , etc. and of Villages can be found in Calamy Revised A.G.Matthews  (Oxford, 1934)

I will attempt a third blog on Isaac Ambrose's  activity on the political side  in these years of  upheaval.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] It must be understood that the place names of the villages and districts have been supplied in  Calamy Revised ed. A.G. Matthews

A Northern Puritan,

Isaac Ambrose 1591-1664

 

It is common to draw  attention to the same handful of names of Puritan such as Manton, Calamy, Goodwin,  Baxter, Bates, Tuckney, and Caryl. Many of these are from London. But those who lived until 1662 came from every region of England. Isaac Ambrose,  the Son of Richard, Vicar of Ormskirk, in Lancashire.. He was educated both in Oxford, Brasenose,  and Cambridge,  Magdalene, 1632. 

 

Mr Isaac Ambrose was born in the year1591; and though we are at  loss to know details his parentage, yet, by the figure he made both in the learned world, and more especially in the church, it appears his education was liberal, and himself assiduous in his application to his studies; of which he has  (it being impossible that such precious fruit should grow  either in a barren or uncultivated soil) through all of which there shineth the greatest piety, zeal for God’s glory, and concern  for the salvation of souls:

 

We know what his writings were. In the folio published in Edinburgh by Martin and Wotherspoon, in1761. It is titled The Complete of Works of that Eminent Minister  of  God’s Word, Mr Isaac Ambrose Consisting  of the following Treatises: Viz.1 Prima , Media and Ultima OR , The Middle and Last Things. II Looking untoJesus, as carrying on the Great Work of Man’s Salvation: III War with Devils, Ministration of and Communion with Angels, IV with a ‘Sermon added concerning Redeem the Time’. (Ambrose preached this at the funeral at Preston in January 1657 of Lady Margaret Houghton,  who was a member of a wealthy Puritan family in the area. For  a while the eminent Puritan John Howe had been the Houghton’s chaplain.)  These  sentences  show what a rural, dedicated Puritan Minister could produce,  January 1657.)   This was A Short Account of the Life, Character and Principles of the Author,  an extract biographical entry taken from  Edmund Calamy’s Lives 2.409.

 

What follows are some extracts:

 

In his youth he made himself perfectly  with Plutarch and Cicero intimate, and was well acquainted with with the other fine writers of Greece and Rome by which means he was well instructed in the  belles lettres, and the various  thoughts and opinions of the greatest men among the Ancients . yet, notwithstanding this conversation With those  sages, he was not so superstitiously  fond of antiquity, as to fit down there, in  contempt of all later and helps and advancements. Being thus prepared, he addressed himself to the more close, particular and thorough  knowledge of Theology. In that science, he exercised his mind  upon what he read; he considered, compared, and inferred. He had the felicity of clear and diligent thinking. By reading he rendered his understanding full, and  by meditation he kept that fullness from being disorderly and confused. He thought it not enough or bundles of novel opinions , to understand the  current orthodoxy of the times, or to gain the faculty of speaking to the common people in the taking tone and phrase in vogue (things that constitute the divines   of that  age) but enquired into the b 

 

And of his last days, also at the first pages, 

 

 During the long parliament under Oliver Cromwell, Ambrose was settled at Preston in Lancashire, where he laboured in his ministerial work, for a considerable time, with great success,   and regarded of all. From thence was and regarded of all. From thence he was removed to Garstang, within ten miles of Preston, where the  act of uniformity found him in the year 1662,  which was the second year after the restoration of King Charles II,     When he, with  near two thousand more ministers, lecturers etc were silenced and laid aside from the public work of the ministry for not conforming to the established Church of England; and he was never again experienced rest during life. Yet that time was not spent in inactivity by him, but employed to the most purpose.....for then was he revised   and gave the finishing stroke to the greatest  part of his and  then it he to the greatest parts of his works from his youth,

From a sketch of dates from Calumny Revised  ed A.D.Matthews (Clarendon Press, 1934Oxford, p.9),  we learn that Isaac Ambrose was a  Curate of St Edmunds, Castleton, Derbyshire, and later the vicar of Ormskirk,  North of Liverpool and Preston and ejected  by the Bishop of Chester, while when he was vicar of Garstang in 1662, a small market  town at the foot of the Pennines. Ambrose was prominent the in Lancashire Classis during the era of Oliver Cromwell’s Long Parliament, being moderator of it several times. He married to Judith, and had several children while at Garstang.  ‘It was  his usual custom, once in a year, for the space of a Month to devote himself to Contemplation.’ He  died 23 January , after his ejection. His daughter Judith and Joseph Moxon his son who married, who died   and  was buried at Preston , a grocer. It was noted that he wrote to Richard Baxter Nov. 1661, about angels. His publications were appeared in London 1649-62.  

There is an edition of his Complete Works, Dundee, 1761 and a sermon ’Redeeming the Time 1657 at the funeral of the honourable Lady Margaret  Houghton, revised and somewhat enlarged, and at the importunity of some published, by Isaac Ambrose, Preacher of the Gospel ar Garstang, in the same County. Earlier he wrote to Richard Baxter and his Letter of Baxter’s and one from W.Cole Preston October 8, 1662 ‘One thing that was peculiar in him deserveth to be mentioned here desireth to be mentioned here,  for the space of a month, to retire into a little hut in a wood, to devote himself to contemplation. Possibly by this practice he was fitter for his sacred  ministration all the rest of the year. He lived, in the letter part of his life, at Preston, and when his end   drew near, he was very sensible of it…  Having taken  leave of his friends abroad with unusual solemnity, as if he foresaw that he should see them no more, he came to Preston from Bolton  and set all things in order  In a little time some of his hearers came to Garstang to visit  him: after discoursing freely with them, and like a man sensible of his death being near,     he accompanied them to their horses, and when he came shut himself up in his parlour,  the usual place of his soliloquy, meditation and prayer. They thought  he staid too long, and so opened  the door, and found him just expiring. This was in1664, aged 72; he was holy in his life, happy in his death, and honoured by God and all good men.

 

Other books  identified are ‘ A well-ordered family’, a republication of Looking unto Jesus , Ambrose’s most published book,    by Reformation Heritage Books. The editor and publisher refers to it as a good example of ‘experimental theology’.