Ainsworth Hexey

Ainsworth, Hexey, born near Blackburn, Lancashire, about 1560. He went to Cambridge, and there adopted the tenets of the Brownist sect of Independents. Driven from England for his views, he appears to have lived in great poverty at Amsterdam. When the Brownists built a church there, Ainsworth and Francis Johnson took charge of it, and published a Confession of Faith that set forth the claims of the Independents to religious liberty. For many years Ainsworth was engaged in the bitter controversies waged between the Nonconformists and their opponents. In this strife his profound knowledge of Hebrew, his cultured intellect, and his high personal character gave him great advantage. He died at Amsterdam about 1623, and is said to have been poisoned.