A History Of The Rise Of Methodism In America - Media Sabda Org

that God had called him to the work; and proposed that the parson should choose him a text from
which he would immediately preach; and, afterwards, he would give the parson a text from which
he should at once preach, and the congregation should judge which was the better qualified to
preach, the parson by his learning, or he by the grace of God. The proposition was popular, and took
with the assembly; the parson, however, excused himself by saying it was late in the day, and left
Mr. Whitworth occupying the vantage in the judgment of the assembly."
Whitworth had scarcely spent two months on the circuit before he fell into sin, and was expelled
from the connection. It appears that Mr. Abbott, to whom God frequently spoke by dreams, was
premonished of his fall. He says, "I thought I saw, in a dream, the preacher under whom I was
awakened, drunk, and playing cards, with his garments all defiled with dirt. When I awoke I was glad
to find it a dream, although I felt some uneasiness on his account. In about three weeks after, I heard
that the poor unfortunate preacher had fallen into sundry gross sins, and was expelled from the
Methodist connection." The news of his fall reached Mr. Asbury, and caused him to remark, "Alas!
for that man, he has been useful, but was puffed up, and so fell into the snare of the devil."
The first time that Mr. Asbury saw and heard Mr. Abbott was in 1781, when he observed, "Here,
I find, remains the fruit of the labor of that (now) miserable man A. Whitworth; I fear he died a
backslider." He was the first Methodist preacher that brought disgrace upon the cause in America.
From the description of the effect of his preaching, as given by Mr. Abbott, and others, he was a
powerful preacher, and qualified to be useful while his heart and life were right.
There are those who can see nothing but absolute weakness in the false and fatal steps of
professors of religion. Did they generally fall by trifling causes and slight temptations, it might so
appear, but thus is not the fact. True repentance leaves such dislike to sin in those who have
experienced the love of God, that it requires the well-circumstanced sin -- some powerful temptation
addressed to the strongest propensities of fallen nature -- to accomplish it. We are at a loss to say
which most appears, strength or weakness, when the exclamation, "how are the mighty fallen," is
made: since it requires the strongest efforts of Satan to effect it.
The last that was known of Abraham Whitworth by the old Methodists, was, that he joined the
British army to fight against the colonists; and it was generally supposed by them, that he was killed
in some engagement.