Unknown County GaArchives Biographies.....King, Jacob 1798 - 1862
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 February 4, 2005, 5:45 pm

Author: J. H. Campbell

JACOB KING.

  A biographical sketch of this eminent servant of Christ, by Rev. B. F. Tharp,
was published in 1864 by Rev. W. C. Wilkes, in pamphlet form. The author is
principally indebted to that publication for what follows, and he takes the
liberty of transferring not only the facts, but sometimes even the language,
without further notice.

  In what county Jacob King was born, is not known to the author. But he feels
safe in saying he was a native Georgian. His birth occurred September 6th, 1798,
and he died in Upson county August 9th, 1862, being nearly sixty-seven years of
age. He was hopefully converted to Christ in June, 1820, and was baptized by
Rev. John M. Gray into the fellowship of New Hope church, Jones county, the
first Sabbath in July following. He was married to Matilda Wilson, January 8th,
1817.

  Soon after his conversion he was impressed with the duty of preaching the
gospel, but was restrained by a sense of his un-fitness and unworthiness until
1825, when, having settled on Flint river, in Upson county, his spirit was so
stirred within him by the prevailing destitution, that he was constrained to
make the attempt in the name of his Master. Having once put his hand to the
plough, he was not the man to look back. His first sermon was from the words,
"He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever
liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."  John xi. 25, 26.

  In 1826, he was ordained as pastor of Bethlehem church. John Hambrick and
Henry Hooten composed the officiating presbytery, his ordination having taken
place on his birthday, he being then thirty years of age. In the following
October, he took the care of the Fellowship church, in which a great revival of
religion was experienced and many were added unto the Lord. Throughout his life
he was one of the most laborious of ministers. He generally preached to four
churches, often supplied others on week days, and was indefatigable in his
efforts in supplying the most destitute neighborhoods with the word of life. His
zeal in this last particular exceeded that of any preacher the writer has ever
known, and was, perhaps, never surpassed by any man of any age or country. The
people of Upson county and the regions around will testify that there was not a
"dark corner " which he, failed to penetrate, nor a destitute neighborhood to
which he did not bear the glad tidings.

He was a powerful and fearless advocate of the temperance cause. In that
frontier region, as it then was, intemperance prevailed to an alarming extent,
and was unfortunately countenanced and encouraged by the example of many
professors of religion, if not by the preaching of some ministers. The author
has a vivid recollection of a "passage at arms" • between Mr. King and a
venerable minister of the anti-missionary order, the first time he ever heard
the former preach. It occurred at an Association in Talbot county, in the fall
of 1834, and on Sabbath forenoon, in presence of an audience consisting of
thousands. The good brother preached the first sermon, in which he protested
that he believed "sperits" was one of “God's good creeturs," to be received with
thankfulness, and said "he had a pain under his short ribs that morning, which
he was confident might have been relieved by the use of some good sperits; but,
unfortunately, there was none to be had at the house where he staid, and so he
was still suffering from the pain." As was the custom of the times, he was
immediately followed by Mr. King, without an intermission. He announced his
text: "And as he (Paul) reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgment, to
come, Felix trembled." His sermon, taken altogether, was a masterly effort; but
especially when he came to speak of temperance, and the evils of dram-drinking,
placing his hand upon his side and bending that long, lank form as if he was in
great agony, he turned to his old brother and exclaimed, "No. sir! I wouldn't
drink the stuff if I did have a pain under my short ribs." The effect was
overwhelming, and his antagonist seemed utterly demolished. "During the
remainder of that meeting no one dared to advocate the use of "sperits," at
least not publicly. His manner was inimitable, and the foregoing statement gives
but a faint idea of its effect on the occasion alluded to. Those who ever heard
him may form some conception of it— none others can. His genius and fertile
imagination never left him without the means of enforcing his views on this
subject powerfully and successfully. One of the best temperance lecturers in the
State, who frequently heard Mr. King, said he had never met any man who could
present the cause more attractively and cogently.

  In the unfortunate division which took place in the Baptist denomination in
Georgia on the subject of missions, he espoused the cause of benevolence, and
urged its claims to the day of his death. He was surrounded by a powerful
anti-influence, yet he maintained his cause with such versatility of talent, and
with such powerful scriptural arguments, as to secure for it a steady advance
and final triumph within his sphere of labor. When the division was consummated,
one of the opposition said to him, "We shall see who are in the right, by the
blessing of God, which shall follow the right." King accepted the test, and
often pointed to the abundant blessing of God upon the labors of missionaries to
prove to the opposition that ours is the right cause. He thought for himself on
all subjects. No man was further from adopting an opinion upon the "say so " of
another; and it is believed to have been this natural independence of thought
that led him to approve the plan of conducting missions adopted by the Rehoboth
Association, which was through the agency of a committee, and not through the
Boards of the Southern Baptist Convention. He thought he saw in Conventions a
power which might be abased, and, for this reason, did .not favor them, nor
often attend them. Believing that churches are the only organisation necessary
for the evangelization of the world, he was willing to unite churches in this
work for the sake of the strength secured by such union, but beyond that he was
not willing to go. Hence, he was an earnest advocate of the first motion made in
his Association to send out and support a missionary in Africa; and when, after
years of trial, it was found that two directors to the same work did not
advance, but rather hindered it, he was equally earnest in advocating a
separation from the Boards. Yet no cause was dearer to his heart than that of
missions, and to the world's salvation he gave the whole of his converted life,
with, the zeal and devotion of a primitive Apostle.

  His talents were of the first order. If we were confined to one word in
describing the character of his mind, we should select genius. He thought, spoke
and acted just like no other man; and yet, all he said and did seemed
appropriate and becoming. It was appropriate in him, but would not have been so
in any other man. He never aped any man, and whoever attempted to ape him, made
himself simply ridiculous. Yet there were a few who would run the risk. Like
most of his cotemporaries, .his literary advantages in early life were quite
limited, yet he acquired a fine command of language, and wrote correctly and
beautifully. He had an inexhaustible fund of anecdote, which he knew how to use
with telling effect. To all these rare faculties, he added an iron will. ~No man
can be great without this, and this he possessed in an extraordinary degree.
When he resolved to do a thing, it was sure to be done, unless it proved to be
an impossibility. This force of will made him a man of great decision of
character. He was tall of stature, exceedingly slender, and predisposed to
pulmonary disease. At the time of his ordination his health was so feeble as to
render it necessary for him to withdraw, during the summer months, from his
field of labor, and spend the time among the mountains of upper Georgia. He
returned in the fall; but the ensuing summer it seemed imperatively necessary
that he should again seek the recuperative influence of mountain air, and
mountain scenery. He accordingly started on horse back; but while on the
journey, thinking of the destitution he was leaving behind, he come to the
conclusion to return and die at his post, if that should be God's will. And
return he did, but not to die; his health immediately improved, and he never
again had to desert his people for want of physical strength. This incident
reminds us of that eminent French general and patriot, Hoche, who, while in
command of the army of Germany, and meditating a second invasion of Ireland,
suddenly failed in health. Calling his physician to him, he said, "Give me a
remedy for disease, but let it not be rest." Thus it was with our christian
hero, he sought a remedy, but said, "Let it not be rest!" His bodily sufferings
were often great, but the soul within nerved him with strength until he reached
a good old age. How favorably does his conduct compare with that class of
dyspectic pastors of fashionable city churches, who must needs have an annual
summer vacation for travel and amusement, especially if the city is under a
visitation of cholera or yellow fever!

  Mr. King had a most fertile imagination, and descriptive powers of the first
order. At a session of the Flint river Association, about the year 1840, and
when he was in his prime, he preached a sermon on the text, "Come thou, and all
thy house into the Ark." of which the author received an account from the lips
of that eminent saint and gifted minister, Rev. C. D. Mallary. He pronounced it
one of the most masterly efforts he had ever heard. His congregation was made to
see the stupendous fabric of the ark advancing to completion for one hundred and
twenty years. They listened to the contempt poured upon Noah by his neighbors
for building such a vessel on dry land, and to the awful warnings he gave them
to prepare for the coming wrath. Yet they went on in their infidelity, "marrying
and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the Ark." They were
held spell-bound, while they were made to see the beasts of the field, even the
wildest and most ferocious come flocking in. Finally the door is shut
mysteriously as by an unseen hand; and then the clouds assume an unwonted
aspect, the thunders roll, the lightnings flash, rains pour down from above,
water-spouts send up their floods from beneath, storms howl over the face of the
deep, ocean breaks over her bounds, and her maddening waves come rolling over
valley and hill-tops, and mountains engulphing an unbelieving world in one
common ruin. And then they were reminded that all this was but a faint figure of
the deluge of God's wrath which awaits the wicked, and that Christ is the only
Ark of safety. And when, finally, he reached out imploringly those long arms,
and cried with that trumpet voice, while tears were streaming down that
benevolent face. "Come thou, and all thy house into the Ark," his audience was
said to have been swayed as by a mighty wind. The writer has heard a description
of another of those efforts for which his ministry was remarkable. He had
commenced a protracted meeting appointed by one of his churches, and had labored
hard for several days. Finally the Sabbath found him with a prayer-less church,
and a large but careless and unfeeling congregation. In vain did he try to
arouse their attention and impress their hearts. The meeting-house was situated
in a forest with piles of granite rock here and there. Suddenly turning his back
upon the congregation, and throwing open the window in rear of the pulpit, he
began a most pathetic and touching appeal to the rocks and trees, calling upon
the rocks to feel and the trees to weep over his unfeeling church and
congregation. He continued in this strain some ten or fifteen minutes, and then,
facing his audience again, raised his hands as if about to pronounce the
benediction. A brother, springing to his feet, exclaimed with deep emotion,
"Stop, brother King; don't dismiss us; preach to us now, and we'll try to pray
for you, and for sinners "—or words to this effect. Taking advantage of the
attention he had thus awakened, he did preach to them, and that with such
unction and power that the meeting was protracted, a glorious revival ensued,
during which many were hopefully converted and added to the church. A volume
might be filled with incidents like the foregoing, which occurred in the history
of this remarkable man.

  He was naturally a logician; not that he understood and practiced the science
as taught in the schools. He was above these rules by nature's own gift. He saw,
at a glance, the meaning and force of a proposition, and few were more ready to
turn a point upon an opponent. On one occasion he had gone to hear a
Universalist preacher, and when the reverend gentleman closed, Mr. King arose,
and, hat in hand, uttered one short, pithy, logical sentence, which brought the
"Universalist's whole effort into ridicule and contempt.

  His theology was just what such a man would be expected to believe and teach.
He held to the universal and total depravity of human nature, to man's utter
inability to recover himself, to the efficacy of the Spirit's work, and to the
sufficiency of the atonement of Christ. He held to universal and unlimited
invitations of mere}' as being consistent with limitation in the application of
the atonement. When listening to his discourses on the power of the cross, the
hearer would be convinced that no man ever loved the Saviour more sincerely.
Upon hearing him in his happier moments, it would seem that if Paul had risen
from the dead, he would have found nothing to condemn. His sermons were
generally short, and he left his hearers wishing they had been longer. They
were, however, formed after no model. It was impossible for such a mind to be
trammeled by rules. Perhaps his sermons would have been liable to criticism,
judged after the method of the schools, but none of the masters could have
brought an audience to any given point with more order and certainty than he. He
was eminently a great preacher, if by great be meant one who vindicates the
whole truth, converts many souls, and ably recommends Jesus Christ as the only
Saviour of sinners. Few men in the same time have preached more sermons and
baptized more converts, and his converts generally wore well. His knowledge of
human nature made it difficult to deceive him, and there were few men who knew
him who would have had the temerity to attempt it. Impostors and hypocrites
generally give such men as he a wide berth.

  As a presiding officer he was affable, punctual, prompt, well informed and
impartial. He presided over the Rehoboth Association as its moderator from its
organization until called away from earth by the Master of Assemblies. He never
failed to attend its sessions, and, it is believed, was invariably elected by a
unanimous vote. He had an uncommon share of "common sense”—a faculty so very
uncommon, that it ever makes distinguished philosophers statesmen, warriors or
divines. If it was necessary at any time to administer reproof, it was done in
such a manner that no one could take offense, and yet it never failed of its
object. The author was a visitor to the Rehoboth Association when its business
meetings were held in a female college, the church being given up for preaching.
Mr. King noticed that some of the delegates and spectators were defiling the
floor with tobacco juice. Rising in his place, and standing silent a moment, he
pointed with that long bony finger at those signs of indiscretion, which were
but too plainly visible, and remarked, "They tell me this is a female
college—that is, as I understand it, a college for females; before I would thus
defile a woman's floor, I would walk down the street a hundred yards and spit in
the sand!" A general smile passed over the audience, but there was no more
spitting on that woman's floor on that occasion.

  Mr. King was a true patriot. He loved his country. In the late struggle of the
South for independence, his whole heart and soul was with the Confederacy,
believing that the interests of the black race, as well as that of the white,
were involved in the issue. No man was ever more kind to his servants, or
considerate of their welfare than he. He plainly foresaw what has since been
realized, that emancipation would be the ruin of the black man, and for this
reason, if for no other, he sacrificed and prayed for the success of the
Southern cause. "Whenever a company of soldiers was to leave his county for the
field of carnage and death, he was sure to be at the depot to give them words of
encouragement, and to offer prayer on their behalf. He did not live to see the
downfall of his people; God mercifully took him away in time to escape the
impending evil.

  But his end drew near. Faithful to the last, he had preached in the open air,
with more than his ordinary fervor, and thus contracted the disease which
terminated his useful life. His death was such, as might have been expected in
the case of such a man—peaceful, happy, triumphant.

  He left no children.   .His widow survives him—a woman every way worthy to
have been the wife of such a man.


Additional Comments:
From:

GEORGIA BAPTISTS: HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL
BY
J. H. CAMPBELL,
PERRY, GEORGIA.


MACON, GA.: J. W. BURKE & COMPANY. 1874.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by
J. H. CAMPBELL,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.


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