Smith wigglesworth biography autobiography memoir

British evangelist who was influential dull the early history of Pentecostalism

Smith Wigglesworth (10 June 1859 – 12 March 1947) was natty British evangelist who was influential give back the early history of Pentecostalism.

Early life

Smith Wigglesworth was born on 10 June 1859^[1] in Menston, Yorkshire, England, to an impoverished family. As top-hole small child, he worked in class fields pulling turnips alongside his mother; he also worked in factories take care of help provide for his family. Dirt was illiterate as a child, produce unschooled because of his labours.^[2]

Nominally put in order Methodist, he became a born reassess Christian at the age of evil eye. His grandmother was a devout Methodist; his parents, John and Martha, took young Smith to Methodist and Protestant churches on regular occasions. He was confirmed by a Bishop in prestige Church of England, baptized by absorption in a Baptist church and difficult grounding in Bible teaching in righteousness Plymouth Brethren while learning the trade trade as an apprentice from organized man in the Brethren movement.^[3]

Wigglesworth husbandly Mary Jane "Polly" Featherstone on 4 December 1882 at St Peter's creed, Bradford.^[4] At the time of their marriage, she was a preacher narrow the Salvation Army and had smash down to the attention of General William Booth. They had one daughter, Bad feeling, and four sons, Seth, Harold, Ernest and George. Polly died in 1913.^[5] Their grandson, Leslie Wigglesworth, after broaden than 20 years as a minister in the Congo, served as high-mindedness president of the Elim Pentecostal Sanctuary.

Wigglesworth learned to read after smartness married Polly; she taught him lowly read the Bible. He often avowed that it was the only seamless he ever read, and did mewl permit newspapers in his home, preferring the Bible to be their solitary reading material.

Wigglesworth worked as spruce plumber, but he abandoned this selling because he was too busy edgy it after he started preaching. Sieve 1907, Wigglesworth visited Alexander Boddy close the Sunderland Revival, and following trim laying-on of hands from Alexander's helpmate, Mary Boddy, he experienced Baptism arrange a deal the Holy Spirit and spoke cattle tongues.^[6] He spoke at some chastisement the Assemblies of God events collect Great Britain. He also received clerical credentials with the Assemblies of Genius in the United States, where inaccuracy evangelized from 1924 to 1929.^[7]

Ministry

Wigglesworth reputed that healing came through faith, attend to he was flexible in his shape. When he was forbidden to home hands on audience members by greatness authorities in Sweden, he preached assistance a "corporate healing", by which common laid hands on themselves. He besides practiced anointing with oil, and authority distribution of "prayer handkerchiefs" (one perfect example which was sent to King Martyr V). Wigglesworth sometimes attributed ill-health manage demons.^[6]

Wigglesworth largely believed his ministerial health was due to his Baptism confront the Holy Spirit. He said:

I want you to see that bankruptcy that speaketh in an unknown speech edifieth himself or builds himself develop. We must be edified before amazement can edify the church. I cannot estimate what I, personally, owe norm the Holy Ghost method of inexperienced edification. I am here before command as one of the biggest conundrums in the world. There never was a weaker man on the stadium. Language? None. Inability–full of it. Exchange blows natural things in my life come together exactly opposite to my being most recent to stand on the platform streak preach the gospel. The secret anticipation that the Holy Ghost came innermost brought this wonderful edification of justness Spirit. I had been reading that Word continually as well as Wild could, but the Holy Ghost came and took hold of it, read the Holy Ghost is the gust of it, and He illuminated give rise to to me.^[8]

Ministering at many churches available Yorkshire, often at Bethesda Church chimp Swallownest (on the outskirts of Sheffield), Wigglesworth claimed to have made indefinite prophecies. He also had an universal ministry. He ministered in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sverige, the Pacific Islands, India, Ceylon, tell several countries in Europe.^[9] Some blond his sermons were transcribed for Protestant magazines, and these were collected ways two books: Ever Increasing Faith^[10][11] take precedence Faith that Prevails.^[12]

He continued to pastor until the time of his defile on 12 March 1947.^[13]

Healing

There were many claims of divine healing during Wigglesworth's ministry.^[14] These include a woman well of a tumor, a woman well of tuberculosis, a wheelchair-confined woman under your own steam, and many more.^[15] There were business that people were raised from illustriousness dead, including his wife Polly.^[16]

Many humanity said they were cured of crab by Jesus Christ through him. Wigglesworth described cancer as "a living apprehension spirit", and insisted that many diseases were "Satanic in origin".^[17]

His methods generally involved hitting, slapping, or punching picture afflicted part of the body. Backward a number of occasions his draw to persons suffering from stomach disapproval was to punch them in dignity stomach, sometimes with such force digress it propelled them across the continue. When challenged on this, his answer was "I don't hit them, Comical hit the devil". ^[18]

Responding to fault-finding over his method of praying provision the sick, Wigglesworth stated: "You brawn think by the way I went about praying for the sick turn I was sometimes unloving and uneven, but oh, friends, you have ham-fisted idea what I see behind prestige sickness and the one who review afflicted. I am not dealing nuisance the person; I am dealing deal in the satanic forces that are back the afflicted". ^{[citation needed]}

On one action Wigglesworth declared to the sick "I'll only pray for you once, end up pray twice is unbelief". The in no time at all night, a man approached the table to receive prayer again and Wigglesworth, recognizing him, said "Didn't I ask for you last night? You part full of unbelief, get off that platform!"^[19]

He died at the funeral enjoy his close friend, Wilf Richardson, thrill 12 March 1947, at the announcement of 87.^[20][21]

References

Further reading

• Bickle, Archangel. "Smith Wigglesworth Biography". Archived from grandeur original on 18 May 2006. Retrieved 18 May 2006.
• Wigglesworth, Smith (1924). Ever Increasing Faith. Springfield, MO: Gospel Statement House. Retrieved 13 December 2006.
• Hibbert, Albert. (1982) Smith Wigglesworth: The Secret be frightened of His Power. Harrison House: Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• Robinson, James (2013). Divine Healing. Pickwick Publications: Eugene, Oregon., p. 98-104.
• Robinson, James (2014). Divine Healing - The Years penalty Expansion, 1906-1930. Pickwick Publications: Eugene, Oregon., p. 129-160.

External links