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In a day before the United States, when we had a king in Virginia, our forebears were responding to an awakening. They were risking persecution at the hands of the authorities, at the hands of fellow Christians who used the power of the government to control those with whom they did not agree. Not only were Baptist ministers put in jail for preaching without a license, but Baptist laypersons were persecuted on multiple levels, being fined for not attending worship, having dissenter prayer meetings broken up violently, and worse. You see, one’s British subjecthood was implied in those infant baptisms at the Established Church.