(Continuing posts about William Calmes Buck)
While in Columbus, Mississippi, William Calmes Buck wrote
"A Brief Defense of the Antiquity, History & Practice of the
Baptists" which was then published by McDowell & Kimbrough, Columbus,
Mississippi in 1854. This book was
actually two sermons. Each sermon was
said to be three hours long! It appears
that Wm. C. Buck delivered these sermons in response to a sermon delivered by a
local pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
He then edited his sermons for a wider audience.
The book begins with a quote from Psalms 23.23: “Buy the Truth and Sell it not”. Wm. C. Buck then wrote “This is a divine
aphorism; teaching the superior value of TRUTH above all other human
attainments of possessions. I adopt it
as an inspired maxim, and lay it down as the foundation of the discourses which
I am to deliver before you this day. I
have not quoted the text for exegesis, but as an exemplar to be followed and
imitated in all that I may say.”
Wm. C. Buck was adamantly against pedobaptism and
pedobaptists (which he always wrote as Pedo baptists and Pedo baptism) and much
of his sermon and book argue against pedobaptism.
Pedobaptism is the practice of baptizing
infants whereas Wm. C. Buck believed only in credobaptism; that is, a
believer’s baptism. This belief put him
strongly opposed to Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists and many
other religions.
Wm. C. Buck goes into some detail to point out that the
first Christians were baptized believers and therefore essentially the first
Baptists. Pedobaptism developed
centuries later (amazing that he could even find some of his references and
sources).
"A Brief Defense of the Antiquity, History &
Practice of the Baptists" is an extremely difficult book to read and must
have been virtually impossible to follow as a sermon.
Wm. C. Buck ends his book with “I say in all earnestness, to
all who truly love our Lord Jesus Chris; do you not know that infant baptism – infant sprinkling, is an invention of
‘the man of sin’, a tradition of the
papacy and the mark of the
Apocalyptic Beast? Why not abandon this pernicious heresy, and
take the Word of God, alone, for the rule of your faith and practice; upon which
we may all meet ‘in the unity of the Spirit and the bonds of peace’.”