Thomas Budd, a prominent seventeenth-century Quaker, was born in England but moved to New Jersey in 1668. He was active there as a proprietor for the Friends, particularly in Indian affairs, and in Good Order Established in Pennsilvania & New Jersey in America ... (1685), written during a trip to England in 1685, he recommended a comprehensive plan of public education which was largely adopted. A New Jersey town--Buddtown--was named after him.

In 1692, Budd became a chief supporter of George Keith, whose attempt to purify the Society of Friends through stricter membership rules and a more uniform orthodoxy created a massive upheaval in both England and America. Budd led several prominent colonial Quakers to secede from the Society of Friends and join Keith's Christian Quakers; he also wrote several works dealing with the resulting controversies. In 1692, amid a conflict involving the relationship of church and state, Budd, Keith, and Peter Boss were charged with seditious libel, convicted, and fined. Budd's account of the affair was published in A True Copy of Three Judgments ... (1692). Other polemical documents by Budd published in the same year are A Brief answer to two papers procured from Friends in Maryland ...; A Just Rebuke to several Calumnies, Lyes and Slanders Reported against Thomas Budd; An Expostulation with Thomas Lloyd, Samuell Jennings, and the rest of the Twenty-eight unjust Judges ..., by Budd and others; and A Testimony and Caution to such as do make a profession of Truth who are in scorn called Quakers ..., by Budd and John Hart. In 1693, Budd accompanied Keith to England, where their case was heard and rejected at the English Friends' Yearly Meeting; in the following year they and others reasserted their positions in The Great Doctrines of the Gospel of Christ.... Afterward, Budd remained a schismatic, reiterating his opinions in "A Test for Truth Against Error" (written circa 1697) and eventually becoming a member of the Anglican church.