Isaac Ambrose (1604–1663), was a Reformed, Presbyterian puritan divine whose works were held in high esteem for their doctrinal excellence and biblical practicality.
In this work Ambrose covers the doctrine of regeneration in three tiers. First he covers the doctrinal aspects of the words of Christ in John 3:3, “Except a Man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” He explains here the order the Holy Spirit sets down in the necessity, generality, manner and issue of the new birth. In the second part, he further explains the doctrine in relationship to how the new birth changes a Christian towards their duty under the Law in mimicking the character of God as a new creation in Christ. In the third part, he demonstrates the practice and behavior of a man in the new birth outlining the soul’s preparation, God’s part and man’s part in the new birth, God’s work on the soul, closing with Christ, and growing in Christ. This is an important treatise on a foundational topic because Ambrose demonstrates how being or becoming religious is not the same as being regenerate.
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Isaac Ambrose was born in 1604, the son of Richard Ambrose, vicar of Ormskirk, Lancashire. Entering Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1621, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1624, and was ordained to the ministry. He became vicar of the parish church in Castleton, Derbyshire, in 1627, then served at Clapham, Yorkshire, from 1629 to 1631. The following year he received a Master of Arts degree from Cambridge.
Through the influence of William Russell, Earl of Bedford, Ambrose was appointed one of the king's four itinerant preachers for Lancashire, and took up residence in Garstang, a Lancashire town between Preston and Lancaster. The king's preachers were commissioned to preach the Reformation doctrines in an area that was strongly entrenched in Roman Catholicism.
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 unto Jesus long held its own in popular appreciation with the writings of John Bunyan.
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