Editing Henry Ainsworth (section)

==Works==
Ainsworth was one of the most able apologists of the so-called Brownist movement. His first solo work ''The communion of saincts'' (1607) is summarised by the historian of Separatism Stephen Tomkins as arguing 'that the true church is a holy community while a church that incorporates the entire population is neither holy nor a community'. Tomkins describes his second book ''Covnterpoyson'' (1608) as 'the most compelling apologia that the Separatist movement ever produced'. It was written in reply to the puritan minister John Sprint and to [[Richard Bernard]]'s ''The Separatist Schisme''.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Journey to the Mayflower|last=Tomkins|pages=267}}</ref>

Ainsworth also wrote reply to [[John Smyth (1570-1612)|John Smyth]], who has been called "the first Baptist", entitled ''Defence of Holy Scripture, Worship and Ministry used in the Christian Churches separated from [[Antichrist]], against the Challenges, Cavils and Contradictions of Mr Smyth'' (1609).<ref name="EB1911" /> Of Smyth's progression to becoming a Baptist, Ainsworth said he 'had gone ‘from error to error, and now at last to the abomination of Anabaptism’, which ‘in him was the worship … of the devil’.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Journey to the Mayflower|last=Tomkins|pages=274}}</ref>

His scholarly works include his ''Annotations''—on ''[[Book of Genesis|Genesis]]'' (1616); ''[[Book of Exodus|Exodus]]'' (1617); ''[[Book of Leviticus|Leviticus]]'' (1618); ''[[Book of Numbers|Numbers]]'' (1619); ''[[Deuteronomy]]'' (1619); ''[[Book of Psalms|Psalms]]'' (including a [[rhymed psalter|metrical version]], 1612); and the ''[[Song of Solomon]]'' (1623). These were collected in folio in 1627. From the outset the ''Annotations'' took a commanding place, especially among continental scholars, establishing a scholarly tradition for English nonconformity. Tomkins notes that 'as late as 1866, W.S. Plumer's commentary on Psalms cited Ainsworth as an authority more than a hundred times and the 1885 (English) Revised Version of the Bible drew on his work.'<ref name="EB1911" /><ref>{{Cite book|title=The Journey to the Mayflower|last=Tomkins|pages=297}}</ref>

His publication of Psalms, ''The Book of Psalmes: Englished both in Prose and Metre with Annotations'' (Amsterdam, 1612), which includes thirty-nine separate [[texture (music)|monophonic]] psalm tunes, constituted the [[Ainsworth Psalter]], the only book of music brought to [[New England]] in 1620 by the [[Pilgrim (Plymouth Colony)|Pilgrim]] settlers. Although its content was later reworked into the [[Bay Psalm Book]], it had an important influence on the early development of American [[psalmody]]. An early critic of the Brownists said that ‘by the uncouth and strange translation and metre used in them, the congregation was made a laughing stock’, while the 1885 ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'' said that Ainsworth ‘had not the faintest breath of poetical inspiration’.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Journey of the Mayflower|last=Tomkins|pages=296}}</ref>

Ainsworth died in 1622, or early in 1623, for in that year was published his ''Seasonable Discourse, or a Censure upon a Dialogue of the [[Anabaptist]]s'', in which the editor speaks of him as a departed worthy.<ref name="EB1911"/>