Life
He was born of a farming family of Swanton Morley, Norfolk. He was educated at Caius College, Cambridge, and, after associating with the Puritan party in the Church, eventually joined the Separatists.
Driven abroad about 1593, he found a home in "a blind lane at Amsterdam", acting as "porter" to a bookseller, who, on discovering his knowledge of Hebrew, introduced him to other scholars. When part of the London church, of which Francis Johnson (then in prison) was pastor, reassembled in Amsterdam, Ainsworth was chosen as their doctor or teacher. In 1596 he drew up a confession of their faith, reissued in Latin in 1598 and dedicated to the various universities of Europe (including St Andrews, Scotland). Johnson joined his flock in 1597, and in 1604 he and Ainsworth composed An Apology or Defence of such true Christians as are commonly but unjustly called Brownists.
Organizing the church was not easy and dissension was rife. Though often involved in controversy, Ainsworth was not arrogant, but was a steadfast and cultured champion of the principles represented by the early Congregationalists. Amid all the controversy, he steadily pursued his studies. The combination was so unique that some have mistaken him for two different individuals. (Confusion has also been occasioned through his friendly controversy with one John Ainsworth, who left the Anglican for the Roman Catholic church.)
In 1610 Ainsworth was forced reluctantly to withdraw, with a large part of their church, from Johnson and those who adhered to him. A difference of principle as to the church's right to revise its officers' decisions had been growing between them; Ainsworth taking the more Congregational view. In spirit he remained a man of peace.
He died in 1622 in Amsterdam.
Read more about this topic: Henry Ainsworth
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“...we never worked for white people in their homes. No, sir, not even once! That is one of the accomplishments in my life of which I am the most proud, yes, sir!”
—Annie Elizabeth Delany (b. 1891)
“The nature of women’s oppression is unique: women are oppressed as women, regardless of class or race; some women have access to significant wealth, but that wealth does not signify power; women are to be found everywhere, but own or control no appreciable territory; women live with those who oppress them, sleep with them, have their children—we are tangled, hopelessly it seems, in the gut of the machinery and way of life which is ruinous to us.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)