AINSWORTH, HENRY. - English nonconformist theologian, b. at Swanton Morley (Norfolk) in 1571, d. at Amsterdam, poisoned, it is said, by the Jews in 1622 or 1623.
He studied at Caius College in Cambridge (from 1587); having adopted the Puritanism of Robert Brown, he was forced to flee to Holland. In Amsterdam from 1593, upon the death of John Greenwood he became (1594 or 95) the “teacher” of his church, and, allied with Francis Johnson (from whom he separated in 1610), he engaged in controversy against Anglicans and Catholics (The Trying out of the Truth, 1615, against John Ainsworth, who had converted to Catholicism). He is known for his most learned Annotations on the five books of Moses, the Psalms and the Song of Salomon. The work had many editions (the best is that of London, 1639, folio), was used in Matthew Poole’s Synopsis criticorum (v.), and reprinted at Glasgow in 1843. The commentary is philologically valuable, although the translation errs through slavish literalism.