Ashwell, George

, rector of Hanwell, near Banbury in Oxfordshire, was the son of Robert Ashwell of Harrow on the Hill, in Middlesex, and was born in the parish of St. Martin, Ludgate, London, Nov. 18, 1612. He was admitted a scholar of Wadham college, Oxford, in 1627, took the degrees in arts, was elected fellow, and became a celebrated tutor in that house. In the time of the great rebellion he continued in Oxford, and preached several times before the king, court, and parliament. A little before the surrender of the garrison of Oxford, he had the degree of B. D. conferred upon him and about the latter end of 1658 he was presented to the living of Hanwell, having been before, as Mr. Wood thinks, chaplain in the family of sir Anthony Cope, lord of the manor of Hanwell. He had the character of a very peaceable and religious man, and was well versed in logic, the schoolmen, and fathers. He wrote, 1 “Fides Apostolica, or, a discourse asserting the received authors and authority of the Apostles’ Creed,” Oxon, 1653, 8vo; to which was added a double appendix, the first touching the Athanasian, the second the Nicene creed. Baxter, who, in his “Reformed Pastor,” had advanced some things against this work, expressed his regret afterwards, in his “Catholic Theology,” for having said any thing against it. 2. “Gestus Eucharisticus, concerning the Gesture to be used at the receiving the Sacrament,” Oxon. 1663, 8vo. 3. “De Socino et | Socinianismo a treatise on the Socinian heresy,” said to be part of a greater work in manuscript. 4. “De Ecclesia, &c. a dissertation concerning the church of Rome;” also a part of his great work on Controversies, published at Oxford, 1688, 4to. 5. “An Answer to Plato Redivivus,” in manuscript. He also translated, from Pocock’s edition, “Philosophus Autodidactus, sive Epistola Abi Gioaphar Ebn Tophail de Hai Ebn Yokdan,” &c. Lond. 1686, 8vo. Our author died at Hanwell, Feb. 8, 1693, and was buried in the church of that place, of which he had been thirty-­five years rector. 1


Biog. Brit. —Ath. Ox. vol. It.