While Anglicans, Presbyterians, Catholics, and Quakers all took their turns in defaming the Baptist position, Baptists were not without their own effective apologists. One of the most outstanding of these was Thomas Grantham (1634–1692), a General Baptist who was a pastor at Norwich, England, lecturer, and messenger in the General connection. Grantham did much to dispel erroneous opinions about the Baptists, and his classic treatises helped to define the theology and polity of General Baptists on both sides of the Atlantic. Following is a selection from his major work Christianismus Primitivus (1678) in which it was important to refute charges that Baptists were seditious.

Should the Principles of the Baptized Churches be censured, as of a State-seditious Nature, I see not how Primitive Christianity itself can escape. For whether we consider, first,

Their Principles in reference to the Deity, Christ’s Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, Ascension, and second Coming to judge all the World in ...

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