THE ROLE OF DAVID KING IN THE RESTORATION MOVEMENT
(With a Study of British Backgrounds)
LEROY GARRETT

The Restoration Movement had its beginning on two Continents. If the mainstream of the Movement had its origin in different parts of the United States, then the watershed that nurtured the mainstream through many rivulets was European. Like the mighty oak whose roots find their way like stealthy fingers far into the earth and in all directions, the Movement initiated by Thomas and Alexander Campbell in Virginia was not only concurrent with a similar movement conducted by Barton W. Stone in Kentucky, but its roots reached far back into British history. The Campbells themselves were Irish immigrants, and their early experiences in Ireland and Scotland gave birth to ideas that grew to maturity in America. It is not amiss to say that the Campbells brought the seeds of the Restoration Movement with them from Ahorey and Glasgow.

The contributions of Great Britain to the Movement, however, was not merely that of a watershed to the larger stream in America, or even in producing the Campbells, but in the development of an indigenous Movement that preserved some of the vital principles of Restoration that its counterpart in America began to neglect. Discipledom in Great Britain grew modestly but consistently through the nineteenth century. By 1842 there were at least fifty congregations that had taken the name “Church of Christ” and pled for the abolition of sectarianism and a return to the faith and practice of primitive Christianity. By 1847, the year of Alexander Campbell’s visit, there were eighty churches with 2,300 members.

It is noteworthy that these churches had no contact with the Movement in America until 1833. In that year an American disciple informed some British brethren of the work of Alexander Campbell and introduced them to his publications. From that time until Campbell’s death in 1866 the contact between the two continents was friendly and consistent. During most of these years there was a British Millennial Harbinger for the purpose of disseminating the views of Campbell, and in 1847 when the Reformer visited the churches of Great Britain and Ireland he was warmly received.

Oddly enough these congregations have preserved some of the unique practices of Campbell and his associates that American churches have for the most part long since discarded. Campbell taught his congregations to observe “the prayers of the church,” which called for a chain of prayers that alternated with silence and was closed by the presiding brother. These were short prayers given by several members of the congregation that displaced the pastoral prayers offered by a clergyman in an orthodox denominational service. Too, the British churches preserved Campbell’s concern for doctrine and they have been less influenced by economic considerations. They have been satisfied with small numbers, modest budgets, and simple meetinghouses.

They are, however, most “Campbellite” in their opposition to the one-man pastor system. While the American churches soon developed a clergy, the British brethren were adamant in their conviction that the churches should be ruled and nurtured by the elders and other qualified “laymen” in the churches. They have consistently opposed the resident minister, who in the American churches is the central figure and indeed “the pastor” of the flock.

The “pastor system” with its implication of a clergy class has been a point of dissension between the two continents, chiefly because American influences have sought periodically to foist the system upon the British brethren. Being much more concerned with numerical growth and organizational strength, Americans have argued that the British congregations would be more successful with a professional minister in the pulpit. Like Campbell who pointed to the practice of the New Testament churches, the British brethren continued to insist that it is unscriptural to substitute a professional ministry for mutual ministry.

American disciples went so far in about 1870 as to send missionaries to the British churches through the American Foreign Christian Missionary Society. This was instigated by Timothy Coop, a Britisher, who thought perhaps the American system would succeed where local forces had failed. In more recent years missionaries from the Church of Christ wing of American discipledom have likewise attempted to professionalize and Americanize some British churches. Despite all these influences the British brethren continue for the most part to uphold the principle of mutual ministry. Apart from a few “American” churches there is hardly a congregation to be found with a professional minister. There are a number of evangelists that circulate among the churches, but in the main “the pulpit” is attended by a “lay” ministry.

Among the leaders of the Restoration Movement in Britain was David King (1819-1894), the subject of this monograph. He was a key figure in the struggle just alluded to. It is the purpose of this study to define his role in the Movement by giving a description of his life and thinking. William Robinson, one-time principle of Overdale College in England and an eminent intellectual leader in the history of the British Movement, states in his What Churches of Christ Stand For (Birmingham, England, 1926) that the Restoration Movement in England “began with a stressing of intellectual values. Its beginnings were scholarly in the best sense of the word.” He says also that the Movement seemed to have attracted thinkers. “It was not in any sense ‘popular,’ and never attempted to make any ‘popular’ appeal. Men and women joined the churches out of conviction, and very often this meant sacrifice in more than one way. There was a quiet, restrained dignity about it all, marked by sanity and an absence of sentimentalism.”

It is in this context that Prof. Robinson refers to David King as “in many ways a most remarkable man, keenly intellectual and a born leader.” King was a leader in a Movement that was a challenge to think — and yet a Movement that viewed colleges with suspicion and looked with askance upon a professionally-trained clergy.

As a background for the understanding of David King we will first observe the rumblings of reform that may be heard as far back as John Locke (1632-1714), “the great Christian philosopher” (to quote Alexander Campbell), and were reverberated by such precursors of reform as John Dury, Hugo Grotius, John Glas, Robert Sandeman, Greville Ewing, and the Haldane brothers. We shall view the context that produced Alexander Campbell and sent him to the New World with a sense of destiny. We shall see how David King stood on the shoulders of giants and how Restoration in Great Britain owes it origin to forces that had been at work for several generations. We shall take a special look at the Anabaptists, a neglected aspect of Restoration beginnings.

Background to British Restoration Movement

The Protestant Reformation was itself a forerunner of the Restoration principle, for it was based upon the all-sufficiency of the Scriptures and it appealed to the purity of primitive Christianity. While Luther opposed the Anabaptists, the radical reformers of the Reformation in their efforts to restore New Testament practices, he nevertheless upheld the great Restoration principle of the priesthood of all believers. Calvin was closer to Restoration thought than Luther, going so far as to suggest that the Lord’s Supper be observed every week.

It was the Anabaptists, however, that sowed much of the seed of the Restoration ideal. Franklin H. Littell in his The Free Church quotes the famed German historian Walther Koehler as saying: “The Anabaptists are the Bible Christians of Reformation history, distinguished from the Reformers through the extension of the Biblical norm beyond the purely religious into economic and social life.” The Anabaptists took their religion seriously, supplying its principles to everyday life and not merely to doctrinal judgments. They understood fellowship, discipleship and ministry better than the Calvinists and Lutherans. They had the clergy-laity problem pretty well in hand.

Littell gives a quotation from another German professor who had written to him about his studies in the Reformation for a new course he was offering in a theological seminary. Said the professor: “I discovered my previous impression to be justified, that the whole misery of German Protestantism is rooted in the fact that from the very beginning the Reformation churches became nothing but pastor-churches. The same church which discovered the priesthood of all believers has up to the present day never understood how to develop a real sense of responsibility in the Christian laity, with spontaneous cooperation in the local churches.”

The professor in saying that while Luther and Calvin discovered the priesthood of all believers, the churches of the Reformation have been nothing but pastor-churches. The truth is that the reformers opposed the Anabaptists because they sought to make the churches more democratic and less clerical. Luther never intended anything more than a moderate reform, and he certainly had no intention of unfrocking the clergy. The Anabaptists were “a voluntary association of convinced believers” who believed in the mutual ministry of the saints. They insisted on immersion and opposed infant baptism with vigor, and emphasized the spiritual life, significance of the Lord’s Supper, and the separation of church and state. They wished to be called simply “Christians” or “Brethren.” They did not care to start any new denomination, but they rather envisioned the one holy, catholic church. Denominations arose after them, but it was not their intention. They were a terribly misunderstood people and were persecuted even to the point of torture. Though they were exclusivists and some of them extremists, they were probably the best element to come out of the Reformation.

K. S. Latourette in A History of Christianity states that the Anabaptists “wished to return to the primitive Christianity of the first century.” He further explains that it was their objection to infant baptism that caused them to be persecuted, for their insistence that people be immersed who were sprinkled as infants was a declaration that virtually unchristianized all of Christendom. Roman Catholics and Lutherans joined in persecuting them. Hundreds were drowned, beheaded or imprisoned; others were forced to leave their homes. After explaining that the Anabaptists were all stamped out on the Continent, Latourette points out that “they contributed to the emergence or development of movements in Britain, chiefly the Independents, Baptists, and Quakers.” It is significant to our study that the Anabaptists laid groundwork in continental Europe that later bore fruit in Great Britain.

We may conclude our brief survey of the Anabaptists with an interesting analysis from H. C. Vedder’s Balthazar Hubmaier, The Leader of the Anabaptists:

“The real offense of the Anabaptists was not that they were seditious, turbulent, fomenters of social revolution, and therefore dangerous subjects, potential rebels even when not in actual rebellion. That was true of a few among them, but nobody ever seriously believed this of the majority. The real offence of the Anabaptists was that they were Anabaptists . . .

“Their doctrines were too Scriptural, too spiritual, too incompatible with those that in many places were being forced on unwilling people, in the name of reform by irreligious rulers obviously actuated by ambition and greed. Their doctrines were too often eagerly received by the common people, who lacked learning requisite for the perversion of the plain sense of Scriptures, and found their Bibles and Anabaptists teachings to agree wonderfully.”

Does this not sound somewhat like a page from the history of the Restoration Movement? Surely we may conclude that the Anabaptists were precursors of the kind of reformatory thought that characterized early Disciple pioneers. The Anabaptists have been strangely neglected by church historians. There is presently a revival of interest in them. One of my professors at Harvard recently visited some of the remote villages of Europe in search of original sources for his book about the Anabaptists. Historians admit that far too little is known about them. It is my conviction that as we uncover more information on the Anabaptists we will discover how remarkably Christian they were in an age of entrenched clericalism. It is possible that we will come more and more to think of them as an important part of the foundation of the Restoration Movement.

The attitude of Protestants themselves toward the Anabaptists is evidence enough that the Reformation carried with it a system of creedal authority. While the Reformation rejected many of the medieval dogmas of Romanism, it did not rid itself of clericalism, legalism, or a totalitarian church. Protestant churches sought to be state churches just as Roman Catholicism had been, and it ignored the very principles of religious freedom to which it had appealed in its rebellion to Rome. It soon developed a crystallized sectarianism.

Perhaps it was inevitable that the Reformation would give to England a state church with the king as its head. But the struggle to make the Church of England the kind of Protestantism that would unite the divergent parties was long and bitter. For a time the Presbyterians had control, and so the clergy who insisted on episcopacy were relieved of their jobs. Under Cromwell the Independents controlled the church, and at other times it was the Episcopalians. The party in control would depose one monarch and enthrone another. The Savoy Conference was an effort to unite the warring factions, but it ended in victory for episcopacy. Then followed the Act of Uniformity in 1662 which compelled all dissenters from episcopacy to conform or else suffer persecution. So the state Episcopal Church of England dominated only by means of coercing those who differed with them by fines, exile, and imprisonment. Gradually the dissenters gained enough freedom to become tolerated sects, and in view of what they had been through it is easy to see why they were willing to settle down to a comfortable sectarianism.

These were the times that produced the prophets of unity and tolerance and the forerunners of Restoration thought. Garrison and DeGroot point out in The Disciples of Christ: A History that it was during this period when in tolerant parties were seeking to compel each other to conform or to excommunicate each other that the classic phrase was coined: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” It originated in Germany long before it was used by our pioneers. We now turn to a somewhat detailed view of the precursors of Restoration.

John Locke

In his Letter Concerning Toleration Locke sought to alleviate the miserable state of affairs in England’s divided Christendom. He insisted that toleration is “the chief characteristic mark of the true Church,” and that those traits commonly witnessed in the lives of English Christians were “marks of men striving for power and empire over one another” rather than marks of the true Church of Christ. It was a woeful farce to Locke that men would be so eager to ostracize each other over their differences of opinion when in their private lives they were guilty of immoralities.

Throughout this Letter, as well as in other writings, the philosopher says much that is similar to what was later enunciated by Restoration leaders. Concerning unity of Christians he says: “Since men are so solicitous about the true church, I would only ask them here, by the way, if it be not more agreeable to the Church of Christ to make the conditions of her communion consist in such things, and such things only, as the Holy Spirit has in the Holy Scriptures declared, in express words, to be necessary to salvation.” This was precisely Alexander Campbell’s position, though not always the viewpoint of many of those that today makeup the Restoration Movement. Such is the position taken by this journal: nothing is to be made a test of fellowship between Christians that God has not made a condition to salvation.

Locke continues to talk like a “Campbellite” when he says: “I ask, I say, whether this be not more agreeable to the Church of Christ than for men to impose their own inventions and interpretations upon others as if they were of Divine authority, and to establish by ecclesiastical laws, as absolutely necessary to the profession of Christianity, such things as the Holy Scriptures do either not mention, or at least not expressly command?”

The philosopher is right in implying that most of our division is the result of making laws out of opinions or in forcing our own interpretation upon difficult passages of Scripture. Division is often over matters that the Bible says nothing about whatsoever. Discipledom is today divided over premillennialism (a difficult and vague subject of Biblical prophecy) and instrumental music (of which subject the New Testament is completely silent). In Locke’s time the situation was much the same.

Locke also anticipated British and American restorationists in his anti-clericalism. To him the church is “a free and voluntary society” that is free of the magistrate’s sword and the clergyman’s dogmatism. He needles the clergy by reminding his readers “how easily and smoothly the clergy changed their decrees, their articles of faith, their form of worship, everything according to the inclination of the kings and queens.” Men must be made free from “all dominion over one another in matters of religion.” This involves liberating the church from the state. Since faith and inward sincerity are the things that procure acceptance with God then no magistrate can force his own religion upon his subjects or compel others to believe as he does. The church on the other hand is to stay out of the magistrate’s jurisdiction; the only business of the Church is the salvation of souls.

Locke showed shades of Campbell’s “Sermon on the Law” in his distinction between law and gospel, which put him well ahead of most of the theological thinking of his day. In refuting the claim that the state is justified in punishing heretics because Moses rooted out idolaters, he says: “True indeed, by the law of Moses idolaters were rooted out; but that is not obligatory to us Christians.” Then he lays down a second legal principle: “No positive law whatsoever can oblige any people but those to whom it is given. ‘Hear, O Israel,’ sufficiently restrains the obligations of the law of Moses only to that people.”

His faith in the Scriptures as the only foundation of faith was strong. It was difficult for him to believe that a person truly has faith in the sufficiency of the Bible who will “nevertheless lay down certain propositions as fundamental which are not in the Scriptures.” He then adds: “Because others will not acknowledge these additional opinions of theirs, nor build upon them as if they were necessary and fundamental, they therefore make a separation in the Church, either by withdrawing themselves from others, or expelling the others from them.”

All of us who are teachers of the Word of God might well ponder this indictment from John Locke: “I cannot but wonder at the extravagant arrogance of those men who think that they themselves can explain things necessary to salvation more clearly than the Holy Ghost, the eternal and infinite wisdom of God.”

Who is a heretic? Locke was interested in the answer to this question since it was apparent that every opinionist considered himself orthodox and the person who differed with him as a heretic. He saw that heresy was commonly associated with doctrinal differences — that a man was branded heretical or schismatic if he held to a doctrinal interpretation that differed from the party to which he belonged. We may add that this is the common view of heresy today. It is thought of as error in doctrine; an heretic is thus one who holds and perhaps teaches a false doctrine — “false” according to party standards. Locke disagreed with this view of heresy.

To Locke separation is the main idea in heresy. “Heresy is a separation made in ecclesiastical communion between men of the same religion for some opinions no way contained in the rule itself . . . Amongst those who acknowledge nothing but the Holy Scriptures to be their rule of faith, heresy is a separation made in their Christian communion for opinions not contained in the express words of Scripture.” Heresy is “a ill-grounded separation in ecclesiastical communion made about things not necessary.”

He tells us who is not a heretic: “He that denies not anything that the Holy Scriptures teach in express words, nor makes a separation upon occasion of anything that is not manifestly contained in the sacred text — however he may be nicknamed by any sect of Christians and declared by some or all of them to be utterly void of true Christianity — yet in deed and in truth this man cannot be either a heretic or schismatic.”

Modern discipledom is badly in need of this lesson. Men are branded heretics for holding different opinions or for an unwillingness to conform to party lines. Is a man a heretic because he sincerely holds to the premillennial view of the kingdom of God? Is it heresy to support an evangelist through a missionary society? As crucial as professionalism and institutionalism have become in our ranks, is it proper to label such conditions as heretical or schismatic? It is only when one builds a party around his own particular interpretation to the division of the body of Christ that he becomes a heretic. Locke is right in insisting that heresy is separation. A heretic is one who breaks away from the disciples, or divides the church, in order to promote his own cause and opinion. He is one who “disfellowships” others because they do not agree with him. He may even be right in doctrine; it is attitude that makes him a heretic.

Lesser Known Prophets of Reform

John Locke is our Exhibit A that some Restoration principles were envisaged by the leaders of the British enlightenment. After all, Locke was “the greatest philosophical exponent of the new spirit in England,” to quote a new Introduction to Philosophy by Avrum Stroll and Richard Popkin. Locke was undoubtedly England’s greatest philosopher, and he is one of the most influential thinkers of all history. We have also looked to the Anabaptists as grounds for believing that ideas of Restoration reached Britain through their influence.

We have now to look at lesser stars of the constellation to see if references to primitive Christianity were somewhat general, or at least a rather common frame of reference in efforts to find an answer to the religious confusion.

In A. T. DeGroot’s The Restoration Principle (Bethany Press, 1960) it is revealed that Daniel Defoe, the novelist of Robinson Crusoe fame, was an advocate of the restoration of primitive Christianity. He was a Britisher and a contemporary of John Locke. DeGroot points out that one might be surprised to discover how pointedly Defoe used Robinson Crusoe to convey his religious convictions. Defoe was a devoted nonconformist layman who sees in Friday, the savage found by Crusoe, a means of illustrating the power of the Bible in an honest heart apart from state church or clergy. After finding a Bible in the wrecked ship, Robinson Crusoe nor only gives the book a careful study himself, but proceeds to instruct Friday.

Defoe was not writing for any religious sect when he put the following words into the mouth of Crusoe:

This savage was now a good Christian, a much better than I . . . We had here the word of God to read, and no farther off from his Spirit to instruct, than if we had been in England . . . Another thing I cannot refrain from observing here also, from experience in this retired part of my life, viz., how infinite and inexpressible a blessing it is that the knowledge of God, and of the doctrine of salvation by Christ Jesus, is so plainly laid down in the word of God, so easy to be received and understood, that, as the bare reading the Scripture made me capable of understanding enough of my duty to carry me directly on to the great work of repentance for my sins, and laying hold of a Saviour for life and salvation, to a stated reformation in practice and obedience to all God’s commands, and this without any teacher or instructor — I mean human — so the same instruction sufficiently served to the enlightening this savage creature, and bringing him to be such a Christian as I have known few equal to him in my life.

As to all the disputes, wranglings, strife and contention which have happened in the world about religion, whether niceties in doctrine, or schemes of church government, they were all perfectly useless to us, and, for aught I can yet see, they have been so to the rest of the world. We had the sure guide to heaven, viz., the word of God; and we had, blessed be God, comfortable views of the Spirit of God teaching and instructing us by His word, leading us into all truth, and making us both willing and obedient to the instruction of His word. And I cannot see the least use that the greatest knowledge of the disputed points of religion, which have made such confusions in the world, would have been to us, if we could have obtained it. (DeGroot’s transcription)

Here we have a strong appeal for the sufficiency of simple biblical Christianity in a popular British novel as early as 1719. We might add in passing that Defoe spent two years in prison for a pamphlet he wrote in defense of those who dissented from the Church of England.

Garrison and DeGroot (op. cit.) give us this interesting quotation from Edward Stillingfleet, a clergyman within the established church, which indicates that Restoration concepts existed within the Church of England as well as without.

“It would be strange indeed the Church should require more than Christ himself did, or make other conditions of her communion than our Saviour did of Discipleship . . . Without all controversie, the main inlet of all distractions, confusions and divisions of the Christian world hath been the adding of other conditions of Church-communion than Christ hath done.”

Observe that Dean Stillingfleet accounts for religious division on the grounds that Christians add other conditions of fellowship than those enjoined by the Christ. On this point he was perhaps a better Campbellite than many modern disciples who continually draw lines of fellowship on each other.

There were those that were suspicious of party names. John Dury (1595-1680) favored the abolition of all sectarian names and urged that all Protestants be called “Reformed Christians,” He traveled widely among the churches as a peacemaker, pleading for less controversial writing and more freedom for the individual. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) wrote two books in which he sued for peace. He avowed that peace and unity could be achieved by an appeal to “the beauty of the primitive church.”

Glasites

As we move toward the middle of the eighteenth century we find movements in Britain that are more definitely and distinctively Restoration in character. The one basic purpose of these movements was to reproduce the church as it existed in apostolic times. They were more specific and detailed in their approach to Restoration than had ever been hinted at by their precursors. One such movement was started by John Glas, a Presbyterian, who left the Church of Scotland because of its alignment with the state and because it had such lawmaking bodies as synods that were not sanctioned by the New Testament. His main interest was that congregations have liberty to conduct their own affairs in the light of their understanding of the New Testament.

Gradually the Glasites came to reject all creeds and to be directed by the Scriptures alone. They began to observe the Lord’s Supper more often than the once-a-month practice of the Scottish church, and they placed a plurality of elders over each congregation. Most important of all was their consciousness of the primitive order and their eagerness to reproduce it. This desire made them indifferent to the ritual and organizations of the established churches. It likewise cooled them on the clergy. Their churches were small, humble, and insignificant in comparison to the state churches, and there were never more than twenty or thirty of them.

Robert Sandeman, a son-in-law to Glas, became the most important leader among the Glasites. Indeed he was a recognized theologian whose works were read widely by people who knew little or nothing of his religious movement. Sandeman was strongly intellectual (Campbell regarded him as “a giant among pygmies”) and he stressed a reasonable approach to religion as against an emotional approach. His churches practiced mutual ministry and weekly celebration of Lord’s Supper. William Robinson (op. cit.) points out that Michael Faraday, the famous scientist, was a Glasite.

Though the Glasites were definitely restoration-minded they were not immersionists. It was Archibald McLean (1733-1812) along with Robert Carmichael, both Glasite ministers, that began to immerse after the apostolic order and started a Scotch Baptist Church in 1765. The Scotch Baptists became the immediate forerunners of the Churches of Christ of Great Britain. Some of Mclean’s Baptist congregations were remarkably similar to the “Campbellite” churches in America — and some of these British churches had existed for almost a generation when Alexander Campbell was born in Ireland in 1788.

The Haldane Brothers

Alexander Campbell’s biographer, Robert Richardson, identifies the reformatory movement of the Haldanes in Scotland as the one “from which Mr, Campbell received his first impulse as a religious reformer, and which may be justly regarded, indeed, as the first phase of that religious reformation which he subsequently carried out so successfully,” We have arrived, therefore, at that point in history where the sun of the Restoration Movement as we know it has begun to dawn.

The Haldane brothers were rich men who had such religious zeal as to spend large sums on erecting tabernacles for the preaching of the Word, organizing seminaries and missionary societies, and even supporting the religious education of more than a score of primitive Africans. Their money was also spent on the distribution of tracts and Bibles, for as yet there were no organized societies for this work. They set up Sunday Schools and imported the great evangelists of the day to preach. They were of course dissenters from the established church and soon organized themselves into a Congregational Church, mainly because the state church opposed their efforts. Richardson suggests that the seed of reform would not have been sown so well as to influence Alexander Campbell as early as 1809 had it not been for the vast amount of money spent by the Haldanes. Campbell came under their influence during the year he spent at Glasgow University after having been detained on his trip to America to join his father.

The Haldane churches were not only independent in government after the New Testament order, bur also practiced the weekly communion of the Lord’s Supper and baptized by immersion only. James Haldane issued a book in which he laid down such propositions as “All Christians are bound to observe the universal and approved practices of the first churches recorded in Scripture.” They believed that the New Testament provides instructions regarding all phases of the church’s faith and practice, They were determined to restore the exact pattern of the primitive church in regards to work, worship, ordinances and ministry. For awhile they sought to defend infant baptism, but eventually it was given up.

One of these Haldane churches was in Glasgow where the 21-year-old Campbell was in college and was presided over by one Greville Ewing, with whom Campbell had considerable contact. Before he left Glasgow for America Campbell withdrew himself from the Seceder Presbyterian Church, the party in which both he and his father were ministers.

There were conflicts in the Haldane movement that may lend understanding to the struggle over such points in the labors of Alexander Campbell and David King. First of all, it was a big step for these people to reject infant baptism and submit to immersion, just as it had been for the Anabaptists earlier. At this time there was no great Baptist denomination that could offer immersionists the security they desired. To reject infant baptism was a virtual withdrawal from all of Christendom.

When James Haldane announced to his Edinburgh congregation that he could not longer baptize children, many of his members left him and either returned to the established church or started a church of their own. Greville Ewing in Glasgow could not lead himself to reject infant baptism, which was a bone of contention in his relationship to the Haldane reformation. Due to the very high regard that Campbell had for Ewing, this may help to explain the tortuous experience that Campbell himself had with the question and why it took him several years to submit to immersion.

If any issue was more controversial among the Haldane churches than infant baptism, it was the doctrine of the mutual ministry of the saints. One Haldane minister: William Ballantine, published a Treatise on the Elder’s Office In which he insisted on the plurality of elders in every church and mutual exhortation on the Lord’s Day. It seems that the Haldanes themselves accepted the view that It was both a privilege and a duty for members in general to speak in the assembly on Lord’s Day. Richardson says this was “the real cause of the division.”

This controversy over mutual ministry runs throughout the entire history of Restoration In Britain. We shall see that David King played a significant role. Even in America there is hardly any idea in Restoration thought toward which people (especially our clergy) are more touchy than that of mutual ministry. Most people wish to be ministered to rather than to minister. Elders are inclined to turn their tasks of ministering the Word into the hands of a professional minister. The “pastor system” pleases most everyone. If one wants a war on his hands, let him make some serious effort to unhorse the modern clergy system. Even in the Haldane movement where people’s minds were inclined toward the ancient order it proved very difficult for the churches to apply truly the principle of the priesthood of every believer.

We have now traced Restoration beginnings from the turbulent era of the Anabaptists to the age of British enlightenment under John Locke, and from such prophets of reform as Daniel Defoe and Dean Stillingfleet to the reformations of Glas, Sandeman, and the Haldanes. Our view has been general. Unlike the American movement, which was more localized and more easily traced to certain men and places, the British beginnings take many paths and bypaths in winding its way toward a crystallized movement. Now that we have taken a general view of the background we are ready for the study of a particular leading figure of the British movement.

DAVID KING: MAN IN CRISIS

The subject of our study was born in London in 1819, which made him thirty-one years younger than Alexander Campbell, but unlike Campbell he was born of parents who made no particular profession of religion until late in life. It was not until David King left school at age 12 to help his Mother in the family business, due to the death of his father, that he came under any. distinct religious influence. This influence was by means of good books working upon an impressionable and eager mind.

In the family workshop young David had time on his hands, so he turned to reading everything he could get his hands on. A kindly neighbor observed that the boy was reading too much fiction and hardly any solid stuff, so he invited him into his own well-stocked library with the understanding that only first class books would be read. Once facts began to replace fiction a new era dawned for the lad.

The same thoughtful neighbor encouraged David to attend Wesleyan Chapel (the British often speak of “chapel” rather than church) with his own sons, and it was here that he was first exposed to the gospel of Christ. He later wrote of this experience with the Methodists: “There I came fully under the influence of the great facts of the gospel and learned the world-wide love of God, being slowly drawn nearer to Him.”

As the boy grew into young manhood his interest in the things of this world dampened his religious zeal. One unhappy influence was an unscrupulous employer who held religion in contempt and permitted irregularities in his business. David came to see that his chance for “success” called for a course of action that was incompatible with the approbation of God. Like most young men he was tempted to seek fame and fortune.

It was about this time while on a Sunday afternoon’s walk that he came within hearing of “a working-man preacher” whose proclamation of the gospel rekindled his interest in things of the Spirit. Returning to a Wesleyan Chapel, it became his constant habit throughout life to attend some assembly of worship (usually more than once) each Lord’s day.

Is there a spiritual crisis in each man’s life, an unusual experience in which man confronts God in judgment? This writer believes that every man has a confrontation with God — a kind of “spiritual ordeal” in which man is alone with his Maker. Such was the case with David King, who left a record of the divine crisis in his life. He describes how “under the preaching of Dr. Beaumont the love of God was felt as it had never been felt before,” and how he was that night “begotten of God.” He continued within the framework of Methodism for awhile, but under the preaching of Robert Aitkin, an Independent, he broke from his Methodist associations. But his unanswered questions seemed to multiply, and he floundered in confusion.

His search for more light became intense. He turned to the Bible with the determination to discover for himself the truth of God, and he sought help from all quarters. While in this state of mind he happened to come in contact with the writings of Alexander Campbell in America, and he was especially impressed with Campbell’s essay on “Baptism and the Remission of Sins” in the Millennial Harbinger. He was pleased to learn that there was a community in America that sought to be Christians only and to reject all sectarian affiliation.

Campbell’s writings convinced him that the Lord had connected immersion in water with the forgiveness of sins. He thus came to view baptism as “the act of translation into the Kingdom of the Son of God.” Yet he was slow to question his former assurance of pardon. The newly discovered truth about baptism was, however, so exciting to him that he eagerly sought to share it with others, only to discover that they were not as open-minded on the subject as himself.

For some two years he was in a desperate and fruitless isolation, and he was himself yet unimmersed. His search for others of like-mind appeared hopeless. Perhaps it was by providence that he learned of an assembly in Lincolnshire that held views similar to the new movement in America. This brought him into contact with James Wallis (later the editor of the British Millennial Harbinger) who had been a Scotch Baptist, but who as early as 1836 had formed a church which in the main stood for the same things for which Campbell was contending in America.

King was immersed into Christ in 1842 at an assembly in Clerkenwell Green, near London, that was presided over by John Black, another Baptist who had become a Restorationist. The record reads: “They, being satisfied that he had been begotten through the incorruptible seed of the Word of Truth — the Gospel of Christ, the Son of God — gladly afforded him the means of burial into the death of Christ, and birth out of water into the Kingdom of the Son of God’s love.” It is noteworthy that according to King’s own view of the matter he was “born again” through immersion into Christ several years after he was “begotten of God,” which he identifies as the great crisis of his life.

His wife, Louise, whom he had married three years earlier, was also immersed. It was a new beginning for one of the most remarkable couples in the history of the British Restoration Movement.

The Man and His Wife

The Bible assures us that a gracious wife is not only hard to find but that “her price is far beyond rubies.” Louise King was evidently that kind of wife. Though not blessed with motherhood, she devoted her many talents to the service of God. Those who knew both David and Louise King testify that David King’s life would have been less worth recording had it not been for the influence of his wife. An observer wrote: “David King has been greatly helped through life by an admirable partner, whose culture and mental force have been equal, if not superior, to his own; and no estimate of the man will be just without taking this into account.”

It takes a wise and gracious woman to be “equal if not superior” to her husband in intellectual accomplishments and yet portray “the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” Even though Louise King was superior to most men in intellectual grace, she knew what it meant to be submissive to her husband. She not only traveled nearly all the time with her husband, who was perhaps the most ubiquitous evangelist in our movement’s history in Britain, but she also joined him as an editor of his publications.

A friend writes of Louise’s competence as a columnist: “We who have lived so many years concurrently with their joint lives and labors cannot forget, even in the serial literature emanating from their house, how often we have turned with grateful refreshment to Louise’s department to find a feast of heart and play of emotion, which was a change from the more taxing pursuit of argumentative demonstration and the exercise of mental discipline in the Editor’s own province.” She is described by her husband as “a loving and faithful wife, and a diligent helper in the work of faith and labor of love.”

It is further said of Louise: “In field or vineyard, wandering or at rest, a sister wife was with him everywhere, except on the briefest impracticable occasions, and her mark was upon everything that pertained to the chosen work of his life. On her part, whatever were her advantages in early education and mental acuteness, she looked up to him as head, and leaned with beautiful and loving trust on an arm stronger than her own. Each was the complement of the other — incomplete apart, in labor as in life.”

The most important source of information on the life of our subject is a book entitled Memoir of David King, which was edited by Louise King (though no date or place is mentioned, it was probably published in England in 1898). An important section of this book is a chapter on “The Home Tribute”, a description by Mrs. King herself. The rest of the book consists of a memoir by Joseph Collin and Mrs. King’s own compilation of some of her husband’s writings as an editor over a period of nearly thirty-five years.

In her personal tribute Mrs. King says of her husband: “Endued with strong mentality, with energy and business tact, he could have made his way in any chosen profession.” She says that the gospel “subjugated his whole life,” and that “professional ambition and lofty earthly aspirations were laid aside.” She saw him as one determined to do the will of God. A touching statement is her description of his love for her: “He had neither position nor wealth with which to endow his companion, but he gave a love second only to that he gave the Saviour. The injunction, ‘Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it: was duly fulfilled by him.” He loved her, she says, for fifty-five years with “gentle courteous love,” which was manifested even as he closed his eyes in death. Love filled his life and “love” was the last word he uttered.

Louise writes of her husband that he was so conciliatory about differences that he went out of his way to let the other brother have his way. She points to faith and patience as his crowning virtues. He believed that right and truth will ultimately triumph. The Lord’s work should be done in the Lord’s own way, leaving the result with God. “Have faith in God!” was his favorite admonition. As for his patience Louise tells how he bore up under acute bodily suffering, misrepresentation, and bitter and unmerited abuse. Regarding his patient labor of love she says some things that should cause all of us of a later generation to think more soberly of our rich heritage: “He fought the good fight, and the rising generation of workers in the Lord’s vineyard, who know but little of the fighting that has been achieved, will find their work much expedited and simplified, because such men have unselfishly toiled, removing obstruction, grappling with error, living Christed lives, holding forth the Word of God against all opposers. To whom we may surely apply the gracious assurance: ‘That they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.’”

A Busy Evangelist

Restoration history in Britain remembers David King most of all as an evangelist. Lancelot Oliver, editor of Old Paths, said of him in 1894: “By nature and personal endeavor he was fitted to command a great influence in evangelistic work. A strong full voice, commanding aspect, a powerful mind, and a great control of all his powers, gave him immense influence on the platform.” Oliver spoke of his fifty-two years of preaching as “a plea by tongue and pen for a return to Primitive Christianity.” His central conviction was the sovereignty of Christ, and in his efforts to be true to Christ as Lord he would sacrifice time, comfort, money and even reputation. He is described as very industrious and as imminently loyal to his responsibilities.

Unlike Campbell, who always thought of himself as an editor and reformer instead of an evangelist, David King was first of all an evangelist. Much of his life was spent in virgin fields or with struggling churches that were not yet established. One of his early successes was in Piltdown, England, where he brought an entire Adventist Church of 150 members into the Restoration Movement. There is no suggestion, however, that he reimmersed them. The practice of rebaptizing those who have already been immersed into Christ is a recent departure from Restoration principles. The early Restorationists in neither America or Britain would have considered reimmersing an immersed believer. It is the “Church of Christ” wing of our movement that is frequently guilty of this falsification of baptism. They will even rebaptize those that have been immersed by “Christian Church” preachers!

Mr. King gradually broke away from his secular employment, giving more and more of his time to evangelism. He carried the gospel to all sections of England. By 1852 there were 76 churches, many of which he had begun and most of which looked to him for leadership. He worked especially in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Leicester, and Liverpool. He understood the New Testament to teach that the evangelist who starts a congregation should watch over it until it has elders to care for it.

These young British churches were alert to the problem of oversight. Elders were to rule over the churches, but until an eldership could be developed they looked to an evangelist for supervision. They took this matter so seriously that it sometimes was put into writing. One church in Birmingham, for instance, released brother King from “his official oversight” in the following resolution: “That this Church receives with deep regret the unconditional resignation of his official oversight given it by brother King; deplores with him the fact that he has not found it practicable to realize his own desire in the complete scriptural organization of the Church; desires to convey to him, and record, its high appreciation of his long, successful, and self-denying labours, and its admiration of his clear and consistent character as a man and a Christian; trusts that in his changed relationship he may still find opportunity to minister to its further enlightenment and complete organization . . .”

The British brethren were sensitive to the need of shepherds attending each flock of God. It was clear to them that if sheep need a pastor then surely lambs do. So they did not leave their babes in Christ without care. Until such time as there were elders it was the evangelist’s responsibility to nurture them. Indeed, it was the evangelist’s duty to train men to be bishops, to “ordain elders in every city.” King did a lot of this kind of work. At Wolverhampton, for example, he not only baptized the believers, but he organized them into a congregation, trained them for leadership, and supervised their work until elders were appointed. Once elders were appointed the evangelist would go elsewhere. This is of course the picture we have of evangelistic work in the New Testament.

It seems that King had his labors as an evangelist were well organized. For many years he labored with a cluster of new congregations in the Birmingham area with a view of placing elders over each one. He would spend nine months of each year with these new churches, training them in the apostles’ doctrine. He spent the other three months in virgin fields. As a congregation was strong enough to move ahead under its own bishops, he would take on another responsibility. When he saw that he could not properly minister to the needs of an unofficered congregation, he would resign the oversight, leaving the church free to turn to some other evangelist to care for it until its organization was completed.

This explains why the British churches proved to be more stable than their American counterparts. While the American movement started far more churches, due partly to the excitement of western frontier life, it did not establish the churches as the British did. The Americans would go into a frontier town and immerse forty or fifty people (90 % of the people were members of no church in those days) and would then leave them on their own to make it the best way they could. Religion followed the frontier — and so did the Campbell movement, leaving their babes in Christ behind without anyone to attend them.

It is evident that Campbell realized this mistake. He felt as David King about the work of evangelists and elders. The truth is that Campbell’s work grew so fast that it got out of hand. It was like an army on the march that has no time to consolidate its conquests. This partly explains why the movement eventually fell prey to the clergy system and why it crystallized into a sect with its several conflicting parties. The American churches were in the hands of a professional ministry within a generation after Campbell, while the British churches continued to be cared for by their own ordained elders, doing their best to withstand the American influence that would disrupt their scriptural order.

David King and the Pastor System

It is interesting that recent opposition to “the pastor system” should be viewed as something new. It has been branded by such epithets as “the teaching of Ketcherside and Garrett,” as if the idea arose with these men. The truth is that most, if not all, of the pioneers of the Restoration Movement registered their objection to the one-man minister system. Both Alexander Campbell and David King were as adamant in their opposition to the system as Carl Ketcherside and Leroy Garrett ever dared to be. And no contest over this practice has been as fierce in this country as it was in Britain when effort was made to foist it upon their congregations.

King’s opposition to the system was more intense than Campbell’s only because he lived to see it encroach itself upon the churches he had established, while Campbell died before the system worked its way into the American churches. Both Campbell and King realized that a professional minister in the pulpit would not only displace the proper function of the elders as the pastors of the flock, but would frustrate any effort to develop a reciprocal ministry. They understood the New Testament to teach that every brother should edify the congregation according to his ability. The hireling minister was an obvious obstruction to this kind of program. Too, the pastor system called for an emphasis upon money, programs, organizations, buildings, and general conformity to sectarianism (from whence it had come) that it was viewed as a threat to the Restoration Movement.

When Timothy Coop attempted to introduce “the pastor” to the British churches, he met the stone wall of David King’s influence. Joseph Collin, King’s biographer, describes Coop as a man who “had the misfortune to get rich” and consequently as one who was conscious of the power of the dollar and who was ambitious to conquer the English churches “by American methods and mercenaries.” It was due partly to the influence of Isaac Errett of the Christian Standard and partly to the misfortunes of the Civil War that the American churches had succumbed to the pastor system. Errett had proposed it only as a temporary expedient, suggesting that the churches could discard it and return to the leadership of elders once they had grown stronger. David Lipscomb of the Gospel Advocate opposed Errett, insisting that it was too much to expect men to give up their salaried position of prominence in the church and return to the uncertainties of the evangelistic field.

Since Errett the Restoration Movement in this country has for the most part been saddled with the pastor system. Elders have become little more than figureheads. The situation is not so serious in Britain, for many of their churches are yet nurtured by the elders, and the evangelists are in the field. Even in the more liberal “Christian Church” wing the distinction between clergy and laity is much less defined than it is in the “Church of Christ” in America. This is due to the labors of King and his cohorts who not only established the churches so that they could do their own work, but also warned against and fought off the American practice. Thus we can read from Joseph Collin: “Coop’s hirelings, finding at the outset the Churches of Christ strongly entrenched and defended, resorted to the expedient of belittling David King and his brethren; but the failure of their own campaign is the best answer to all that; and a sad reminiscence paints Timothy Coop as the man that ‘went down from Jerusalem to Jericho’.”

It was as an editor that King leveled many of his charges against the system. In an article on “The Minister” he wrote: “The Minister! Who and what is he? It is quite common to hear persons allude to the minister of the church to which they belong. Independents, Baptists, Presbyterians, and other Non-conformists, almost invariably use the term in the singular, as ‘the minister of our church.’ We have, therefore, to ask from the New Testament an answer to the very reasonable question: What is that office in the Church of Christ which entitles the person who fills it to be termed THE MINISTER? The answer is short and simple: There is no such office, and therefore no such officer.”

In the same article he refers to a brother who is a shoemaker that has charge of cleaning, opening and closing the chapel, but who is unable to minister the word. He is as much a minister to the congregation as one who teaches. He also refers to Phoebe as “a minister” of a congregation (Rom. 16:1), for the Greek word is the same for servant, minister, and deacon. Those who filled the waterpots at the marriage feast in Cana are called ministers (John 2:5), and in John 12:2 Martha is a minister because she served. His point is that “minister” simply means servant — one who renders any kind of service — and that every Christian is to be a minister.

As for serving as a teacher or preacher, every saint is to fill these functions as he may be able. So a congregation will have as many ministers of the word of God as it has saints who can teach. To hire a man to come in and monopolize the speaker’s stand as the minister (or a current American evasion: “the local evangelist”!) is to falsify the scriptural concept of the priesthood of all believers, according to King. The professional minister is in the way in a congregation that seeks to develop its teaching abilities. He is a hindrance rather than a help.

Evangelists and Elders

King anticipates the question “If you take away the minister, what will you put in his place?” by pointing Out that there is a God-given order for the ministry in the Church of Christ. After showing the role played by the apostles and prophets in the primitive church, functions that do not need to be provided for today since the original apostles and prophets continue to exert their authority through the New Testament, he points out that the work of evangelists, pastors, and teachers must be provided for continually.

Evangelists are responsible for the being of the congregation while elders or pastors are essential for the well-being of the congregation. King does not believe in ordaining or installing evangelists. A disciple becomes an evangelist when he does the work of an evangelist to the extent that he warrants the name. Just as one is not a baker who only occasionally bakes bread, so a disciple is not an evangelist until he is devoted to the tasks of evangelistic work.

We differ with King in this regard, for 1 Tim. 4:14 indicates that Timothy was ordained, and we can hardly see that it is the amount of work that one does that constitutes him an evangelist. The reference to the baker is not a good analogy since the baker holds no office. President Eisenhower was as much president while ill as any other time, even though he could do no work, for he held an office ordained by the constitution. If elders ordain (“lay hands on” as in Timothy’s case) a man to the evangelistic office in view of the church’s constitution, which is the New Testament, then he is an evangelist by nature of the ordination, regardless of the amount of work he does.

Surely every disciple is an evangelist in the sense that he does some preaching of the gospel (Acts 8:4), but the fact remains that “he gave some to be evangelists” (Eph. 4:11). If the evangelist is an officer, as is an elder, then he must be ordained to his work by the disciples through their proper agents. After all, a disciple does not become an elder simply by doing the work of an elder. He is usurping authority unless he is an appointed officer.

But David King does not mistake the work of an evangelist. As we have seen, his fifty-five years of ministry is a good commentary on what an evangelist should be. The evangelist preaches the gospel, immerses believers, organizes churches by training and appointing elders and watches over them until the elders are developed. Even when churches are fully organized the evangelist continues to lend such temporary assistance from time to time as may further strengthen the church. But he never becomes a permanent fixture; nor does he in any wise do the work of the elders. He travels among all the churches, giving special attention to those that need him most.

King emphasizes the need for the evangelist’s “provisional oversight” of newly planted churches, and he answers an objection that continues to be heard today: “It has been objected that the provisional oversight of churches planted by an evangelist, or transferred to him by those who planted them, falls but little short of the ‘One Man System’ — that he has as much in his hands, and is as necessary as the one and only pastor of a modern Baptist or Independent Church.”

Here is his answer as to the difference between evangelistic oversight and the one-man pastor system: “Look fairly into the two positions and it will appear that scarcely any two things can be more unlike. In the one case you have a man filling a provisional position and laboring to prepare men, or to discover their fitness if already prepared, that he may divide among them the work, office and oversight, which rests upon his shoulders, that, thus released, he may give all attention to the rescuing of sinners from the power of Satan, or to the setting of other churches in order.”

Now he describes the pastor system: “In the other case, you behold a man who has made himself, or whom a perverse system has made, everlastingly necessary to the church in which he labors. He is the pastor — he is to feed them with the finest wheat — the pulpit, to which the whole church look for instruction is his — they come to be filled, he has to fill them. And this is to continue, not merely till the edification of the body can be committed to itself, but it is the summit of their wishes, beyond which they have no expectation. This man may (as is sometimes the case) spend fifty years with one church, and then be as necessary to it as at the beginning.”

King further describes the system: “Take him away and send not one of his order to fill the vacant place, the interest expires. The popular pastor or minister is a creature of whom no trace can be found in the apostolic writings. . . It is committing to the evangelist the work of a plurality of elders and also that of divers teaching brethren, so that he becomes truly The One Man. No wonder that colleges in nine cases out of ten fail to supply men equal to their task. That many modern pastors deserve to be noted for talent and efficiency in preaching and defending the doctrines for the propagation of which they are set, is cheerfully admitted, but that anyone ever did, or ever can, wholly fill the office to which they are called is unhesitatingly denied.”

He goes on to point out that the minister should become a true evangelist and set that church in order over which he has been serving as minister. Let elders be qualified to do their job, thus freeing him for new fields. Each church should support an evangelist in the field, and some churches could support several. “Surely the multitude perishing around us furnishes ample employment for a mighty army of preachers.”

David King can hardly be accused of being influenced in his ideas on the pastor system by Ketcherside or Garrett, for he wrote these things over one hundred years ago. He makes Ketcherside and Garrett look like schoolboys on this subject!

Other Important Ideas

It is the ideas that one contributes to a cause that makes his work significant. David King was a man of ideas. There was a kind of “system” to his thinking. He was able to put his finger on the weak spots in the thought structure of the British Restoration Movement. In the remaining part of this study we will summarize a few of his views that are especially stimulating.

Mutual Ministry. King had a large view of ministry-all those that serve in the church, whether teaching or cleaning the building, are ministers. This is the meaning of mutual ministry. In regard to teaching in the assembly, every brother is to edify who is capable of doing so, and only those who are capable. King says, “While the ‘one man system’ has shriveled and enfeebled the tongue of the church the ‘all teacher system’ is still a worse malady. A church with a swollen and inflamed tongue is a frightful spectacle.” He says that there are some who may be able to give a word of exhortation who are unable to teach, and there are some who should remain silent since they can do neither.

Widow Ministry. He understood 1 Tim. 5:9-12 to authorize the appointment of sixty-year-old widows as deaconesses. Their ministry would be especially with younger women, warning them of the maiden’s dangers and teaching wifely duties. Since there are such qualifications as “well reported of for good works, who have brought up children, lodged strangers, relieved the afflicted,” it is clear that it is not a matter of merely supporting such widows, but of selecting them for a service that requires certain qualifications. King points Out that a widow does not have to be sixty years old before she may receive help from the church. Should not the saints give aid to a 45 year old widow as well as to an older one provided her needs were equal? Nor would it be necessary for a widow to have reared children in order to be helped by her brethren. She is to be sixty years old because at that age she is less likely to “grow wanton against Christ” and “desire to marry,” thus incurring condemnation for “having violated her first pledge.” (verse 11). The “pledge” would be the commitment to the diaconate in which the church becomes dependent upon her labors for certain of those who need her particular ministry. This leaves the church without this important service, and this is why her defection from the office for marriage incurs condemnation. So Paul urged that “younger widows be not enrolled.” The enrollment into “the number” (verse 9) is thus an office of ministry. King contended that these “holy women” are our greatest need; their work is the most neglected.

Helps. Among the functions mentioned in 1 Cor. 12:28 as “set in the church” is helps. King says this signifies persons who are selected to assist in work that is especially committed to others. There may be helps to the elders, deacons and deaconesses. They are to be selected by the elders and assigned to help in certain areas of the church’s ministry. A help would not of course have the authority of an elder just because he would be assisting the elders, but he would work under the supervision of the elders in doing those things that the elders might otherwise have to leave undone due to lack of time. It would follow that a help (the selected one would be referred to by this title) to an elder or deacon would in time be qualified to serve in those offices, thus providing the church with depth of talent for offices as they become vacant.

Conclusion

The lack of space forbids our giving a larger picture of David King as a man of ideas. We have sought to stress his role in the British movement as one who helped to preserve the organizational purity of the congregations. He understood the ministry of the church as few have, and he realized that an effective Restoration depended upon the proper function of that ministry. His writings reveal that he saw the restored church as a vital force for good in the community. King’s understanding of the body of Christ was that the abilities of each member would be so employed as not only to edify the body itself but also serve to the enhancement of the community it serves.

David King teaches us much. He shows us how to choose the scriptural order rather than the expedients of a professionally oriented religion. He spoke and wrote of “the beauty of the Lord,” “the Divine beautifier,” and “the King Messiah,” and he teaches us that by becoming ministers of Christ in whatever ways we can we come to appreciate the Christ as the beautiful Lord of our lives. We have too long tried to serve God by paying men and institutions to do for us those things that are truly meaningful only when we do them ourselves.

King seems to represent much of what the Anabaptists, Scotch Baptists, Glasites, and other Independents were seeking to accomplish. In refusing to surrender the principle of the priesthood of all believers, and by resisting the temptation to give mere lip service to it, King was able to do what the background movements never did: he made the mutual priesthood of saints work!