A M B K S E the year 392, after the assassination cf Valentiiiian and the usurpation of Eugcnius. Rather than join the standard of the usurper, he fled from Milan ; but when Theodosius was eventually victorious, he supplicated the emperor for the pardon of those who had supported Eugenius. Soon after acquiring the undisputed possession of the Roman empire, Theodosius died at Milan (395). Bishop Ambrose did not long survive him, having died in the year 397. On many accounts the character of the bishop of Milan stands high among the fathers of the ancient church. With unvarying steadiness he delivered his religious senti ments on all occasions; with unwearied assiduity he dis charged the duties of his office; with unabated zeal and boldness he defended the orthodox cause in opposition to the Arians; with a liberal hand he fed the numerous poor who flocked to his dwelling ; with uncommon generosity he manifested kindness to his adversaries ; and with Christian affection he sought the happiness of all men. His general disposition and habits were amiable and virtuous, and his powers of mind vigorous and persevering. Ambition and bigotry were the chief blemishes in his character. The writings of Ambrose are voluminous, but many of them are little more than reproductions of the works of Origen and other Greek fathers. The great design of them was to defend and propagate the Catholic faith. His -expositions of Scripture contain many extreme examples <of allegorical and mystical interpretation. Modern readers will regard much in the writings of Ambrose as trivial, and even as ludicrous; but his style is vigorous, and the Sentiment is often weighty. Gibbon s judgment appears to be too severe : " Ambrose could act better than he could write ; his compositions are destitute of taste or genius, without the spirit of Tertullian, the copious elegance of Lactantius, the lively wit of Jerome, or the grave energy of Augustin." His exegetical writings include an exposi tion of the Gospel of St Luke, and commentaries on certain Psalms. His Hexaemeron is a homiletical treatise on the history of the creation. " The Hymns of St Ambrose have exercised a powerful influence on Christendom. They were designed by him to be a preventive against the errors of Arianism, and to confirm the professors of the true faith in the doctrines of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ. . . Very many of them have found a place in the liturgies of the western Church. On account of the celebrity of St Ambrose, many hymns have been attributed to him which are not his ; and, on the other hand, some critics have gone into the opposite extreme, and have deprived him of his property. In the Benedictine edition of his works only twelve hymns are admitted ; and Dom. Biraghi [of the Ambrosian Library, who has endeavoured, in his Inni Sinceri di Sant Ambrogio, to restore the hymns to their primitive form] shows reason for believing that only seven of these are genuine " (Journal of a Tour in Italy, by Chr. Wordsworth, D.D., 1863.) The most accurate and complete edition of his works is that published by the Benedictines, printed at Paris in 1686 and 1690, in two volumes folio. A liturgical form, the Ambrosian Ritual, which is still iu use in the arch-diocese of Milan, has been tradition ally ascribed to Saint Ambrose. Several attempts were made, in particular by the Emperor Charlemagne and Pope Nicolas II., to secure uniformity by enforcing the adoption of the Roman breviary throughout the Western Church, but the clergy of Milan refused to yield. The ritual of Ambrose is included in the Liturgia Latinorum of Pamelius (Cologne, 1571-6). "Full information concerning its history will be found in the Ceremoniale Ambrosiano, by Dom. Giovanni Dozio, published at Milan, 1853" (Wordsworth s Tour, 1863). For a description of the famous church of St Ambrose, founded by him at Milan 387 A.D., see MILAN. For the Ambrosian Library, see LiBEAPaES. Notices of his LITURGY and HYMNS will be found under these headings. AMBROSE, ISAAC, a Puritan divine. Formerly the practical and devotional writings of this eminent Noncon formist rivalled John Bunyan s in popularity, and his Looking to Jesus holds its own even now. Prominent name as his was in his generation, very scanty are the personal memorials of him. His own " Media," under the head of "Experiences," yields a few incidents of his life. According to Anthony a Wood, he was a minister s son, descending from those of the name living at Lowick, and they from the Ambroses of Ambrose Hall iii Lancashire. It is probable that his father was Richard Ambrose, vicar of Ormskirk, who was succeeded by another son, Henry. It seems improbable that any of his line could descend of the Lowick Ambroses, inasmuch as they were the most "persistent Catholics of Lancashire;" and there is the additional consideration that, while in our worthy s writ ings there are many references to the Papists, he makes not the slightest allusion to his conversion from Popery, or to any Catholic relatives or associations. He entered Brazenose college, Oxford, in 1621, in the seventeenth year of his age, and must therefore have been born in 1 60 3-4. Having proceeded M.A. and been ordained, he received at the outset a little cure in Derbyshire, which was at that time and onward to Puritanism what Goshen was to Egypt and Israel. By the influence of the Earl of Bed ford, he was appointed one of the king s itinerant preachers in Lancashire. Having later served for a time a curacy in Garstang, he was selected by the Lady Margaret Hoghton as vicar of Preston. He 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, as was John Howe,- their ancestral woods and the tower near to Blackburn affording him sequestered places for those devout meditations and "experiences" that give such a charm to his diary. The immense auditory of his sermon at the funeral of Lady Hoghton is a living tradition still all over the county. For some reason which is unknown, perhaps failing strength for so onerous a charge, Ambrose left his great church of Preston, and became minister of Garstang, where before he had been curate. He waa vicar of Garstang when the Act of Uniformity was passed. He could have conscientiously complied with many of its requirements, for he was willing to use the Prayer-book, and did not stickle at things whereat other tender con sciences did ; but the enforcement was so absolute, not to say brutal, that he found himself constrained to form one of the Two Thousand. His after years were passed among old friends at Preston. He spent a great part of his time every summer in Widdicre wood, where, seldom seen by any except on the Sabbath, he communed with his own heart and his God. The last time he was seen alive was by some friends from Garstang, of whom he is said to have taken leave with unusual affection and gravity. Immediately after they left him he retired to his wonted place of meditation, where he was found by an attendant in articidis mortis. He died in 1664 at the age of sixty-one. Calamy says he was seventy-two, but his college entry shows he was mistaken. As a religious writer, Ambrose has a vividness and freshness of imagination possessed by scarcely any of the Puritan Nonconformists. He is plaintive as Flavel and as intense as Baxter. Many who have no love for Puritan doctrine, nor sympathy with Puritan expe rience, have appreciated the pathos and beauty of his writ ings, which have never been out of print from their original
issue until now. (A. B. G.)
