Now that's an insult
I wrote last time about Praise-God Barebones, a Puritan, sort of, who lent his name to an ancient session of Parliament. That might sound like an honor, but as we'll see, there's more to the story. Barebones, who is also referred to as Barbon, sort of appears in England. He was probably born a couple of years shy of 1600, and most of his early life is a matter of speculation because of the lack of written documentation. He served an apprenticeship as a leather seller, and we have a document showing that he became a freeman and a member of the Leathersellers Company in 1623. He became a member of a non-Anglican congregation sometime close to 1632. This congregation is sometimes referred to as a Baptist congregation, and Barebones was once accused of being an Anabaptist, the older precursors of Baptists who favored adult baptism and required those baptized as infants to be rebaptized as adults. Barebones was certainly not an Anabaptist as he would later pen a work defending infa...