apt to fall into errours, than they that busie themselves most with unnecessary,
curious, circumstantial points.”^188 Brauer maintains that tolerance is a fruit of
mysticism and that Francis Rous was tolerant towards those who opposed him.^189 It is
difficult to gauge if Ambrose’s resistance to controversy was due to his personality or
his contemplative-mystical piety or a combination of both.
That did not mean that Ambrose compromised his values or equivocated on
his theology. He preserved a number of entries that capture the tension and turmoil
related to the Civil War.^190 On October 15, 1647 he states, “[a] Letter full of
Invectives, without any Name subscribed, was in the night cast into my house: I
guess the man, but desire to look up to God, to search my own heart, and to binde the
Reproofs as a Crown unto my head; be the Author who he will, I much matter not,
Psal. 27, 11, 12, 13, 14.”^191 This statement amplified by the words of David speaks of
waiting for the Lord rather than taking matters into your own hand. The next year, on
January 24, 1648, Ambrose wrote, “I was troubled in minde to hear, and consider of
the many oppositions I found in my Ministery; at night I read a feeling passage in
Rogers on Judges 13. thus:---I have often thought it Gods mercy, to keep the
knowledge of such discouragements from them that are to enter into the Ministery,
lest they should be deterred wholly from it, till by experience they be armed against
it.”^192 It is significant to recognize his focus on God and the role of Scripture in
providing comfort and strength amidst persecution.
(^188) Ambrose, War with Devils (^) , 157. (^)
(^189) Brauer, “Francis Rous, Puritan Mystic,” 209, 233-6.
(^190) The literature on the Civil Wars is vast. The sources most directly related to
Lancashire include Ormerod, Military Proceedings in Lancashire; Broxap, Great
Civil War in Lancashire 191 ; and Woolrych, Battles of English Civil War, esp. 153-84.
192 Ambrose, Ambrose, MediaMedia (1650), 77. (1650), 78.^