Augustus Toplady

Rev. Augustus Montague Toplady (4 November 1740 - 11 August 1778) was an English poet and hymnist. A major Calvinist opponent of John Wesley, he is best remembered as the author of the hymn "Rock of Ages".

Augustus M. Toplady (1740-1778). Courtesy Monergism.

Life

Overview

Toplady, son of an officer in the army, was born at Farnham, and educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Dublin, after which he took orders and became incumbent of Broad Hembury. He was a strong Calvinist and entered into a bitter controversy with Wesley. His controversial works are forgotten; but he will always be remembered as the author of "Rock of Ages," perhaps the most widely known of English hymns.

Youth and education

Toplady was the son of Richard Toplady, a major in the army, by Catherine, daughter of Dr. Bate of Canterbury. His mother's brother Julius, rector of St. Paul's, Deptford, was a well-known Hutchinsonian. Augustus Montague was born at Farnham, Surrey, on 4 November 1740.

His father dying at the siege of Carthagena (1741), Augustus grew up under his mother's care, and was a short time at Westminster School. There is a delightful journal by the boy describing his mother's fondness and his uncle's cross speeches, and containing some boyish prayers and sermons (Christian Observer, September 1830).

On his mother's move to Ireland in 1755 Toplady was entered at Trinity College, Dublin, and graduated there in 1760.

On an August evening in 1755 or 1756 (he gives both years at different times; see Works, vi. 199, 207) Toplady was converted by a sermon from James Morris, a follower of Wesley, in a barn at Codymain. His views then were those of Wesley, to whom he wrote a humble letter, criticizing some of Hervey's opinions, in 1758 (Tyerman, Life of Wesley, ii. 315).

But this same year came his change to the extreme Calvinism of which he was the fiercest defender. In 1758 the 18-year-old Toplady read Thomas Manton's 17th-century sermon on the Gospel of John 17 and Jerome Zanchius's Confession of the Christian Religion (1562). These works convinced Toplady that Calvinism, not Arminianism, was correct.

Career

Toplady, 1783 portrait. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

In 1759, Toplady published his earliest book, Poems on Sacred Subjects.

Following his graduation from Trinity College in 1760, Toplady and his mother returned to Westminster. There, Toplady met and was influenced by several prominent Calvinist ministers, including George Whitefield, John Gill, and William Romaine. It was John Gill who in 1760 urged Toplady to publish his translation of Zanchius's work on predestination, Toplady commenting that "I was not then, however sufficiently delivered from the fear of man."

He was ordained deacon by the bishop of Bath and Wells on 5 June 1762, and licensed to the curacy of Blagdon. After his ordination as priest on 16 June 1764, he became curate of Farleigh, Hungerford. Either by purchase or some practice which afterwards troubled his conscience, the benefice of Harpford with Venn-Ottery was obtained for him in 1766. He exchanged it in 1768 for Broad Hembury, which he held till his death.

Toplady may have written "Rock of Ages" as early as 1763. A local tradition – discounted by most historians – holds that he wrote the hymn after seeking shelter under a large rock at Burrington Combe, a magnificent ravine close to Blagdon, during a thunderstorm.

Outside the circle of his immediate friends — Ambrose Serle, Sir Richard Hill, Berridge, and Romaine — Toplady mixed freely with men of all denominations and even general society. He corresponded with Mrs. Catharine Macaulay, and was acquainted with Johnson. One of his letters contains an anecdote of an evening with them, in which Johnson, in order to tease Mrs. Macaulay about her republican views, invited her footman to sit down with them. "Your mistress will not be angry. We are all on a level; sit down, Henry."

Toplady never married, though he did have relationships with 2 women. The 1st was Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, founder of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, a Calvinist Methodist series of congregations. Toplady first met Huntingdon in 1763, and preached in her chapels several times in 1775 during his absence from Broadhembury. The second was Catherine Macaulay, whom he met in 1773, and with whom he spent a large amount of time in the years 1773-1777.

Toplady's 1st salvo into the world of religious controversy came in 1769 when he wrote a book in response to a situation at the University of Oxford. 6 students had been expelled from St Edmund Hall because of their evangelical views. Thomas Nowell criticised these students for holding views inconsistent with the views of the Church of England. Toplady then criticised Nowell's position in his book The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism, which argued that Calvinism, not Arminianism, was the position historically held by the Church of England.

1769 also saw Toplady publish his translation of Zanchius's Confession of the Christian Religion (1562), one of the works which had convinced Toplady to become a Calvinist in 1758. Toplady entitled his translation The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted.

Controversy with Wesley

The unpardonable blot in all Toplady's writings is his controversial venom against Wesley and his followers. The wrangle began after Toplady had published his translation of a Latin treatise by Jerom Zanchius on Calvinism, 1769. Wesley published an abridgment of this piece for the use of the methodist societies, summarising it in conclusion with contemptuous coarseness: "The sum of all this: one in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected: nineteen in twenty are reprobated. The elect shall be saved, do what they will: the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can. Witness my hand, A—T—."

Toplady replied in A Letter to Mr. Wesley (1770), charging him with clandestine printing, coarseness, evasiveness, unfairness, and raking together stories against Wesley's general conduct. Wesley reiterated his estimate in The Consequence Proved (1771). Toplady replied in More Work for Mr. Wesley (1772). He had, he said, kept the manuscript by him "some weeks, with a view to striking out what might savour of undue asperity," but it contains sentences like these: Wesley's tract is "a known, wilful, palpable lie to the public." "The satanic guilt … is only equalled by the satanic shamelessness."

This debate peaked in 1774, when Toplady published his 700-page Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England, a massive study which traced the doctrine of predestination from the period of the early church through to William Laud. The section about the Synod of Dort contained a footnote identifying 5 basic propositions of the Calvinist faith, arguably the earliest appearance in print of the summary of Calvinism known as the "five points of Calvinism".

After this Wesley declined to "fight with chimney-sweepers," and left the "exquisite coxcomb," as he terms Toplady, to Walter Sellon, against whom Toplady raged in The Historic Proof. Until disease stopped him Toplady never ceased to hound Wesley in the Gospel Magazine, of which he was editor from December 1775 to June 1776; and in An Old Fox Tarred and Feathered he brackets with malicious delight the passages from Johnson's Taxation no Tyranny, which Wesley has transferred without acknowledgment to his Calm Address to the American People (1775). There was venom among Wesley's followers also.

Last years

In 1775 signs of consumption (tuberculosis) necessitated Toplady's removal from his living at Broad Hembury, under leave of non-residence, to London. There he ministered in the French Calvinist reformed church in Orange Street.

When he was in the last stage of consumption a story reached him that he was reported to have changed some of his sentiments, and to wish to see Wesley and revoke them. He appeared suddenly in the Orange Street pulpit on 14 June 1778, and preached a sermon published the following week as "The Rev. Mr. Toplady's dying avowal of his Religious Sentiments," in which he affirmed his belief, and declared that of all his religious and controversial writings (especially those relating to Wesley) he would not strike out a single line.

Toplady died of consumption on 14 August 1778. Subsequently Sir Richard Hill appealed to Wesley about a story, said to emanate from a curate of Fletcher, that his old enemy had died in black despair, uttering the most horrible blasphemies. Hill enclosed a solemn denial of the calumny, signed by 13 witnesses of his last hours.

Writing

Prose

Of the contemporary Calvinist writers Toplady was the keenest, raciest, and best equipped philosophically. His best book is The Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England (1774), a presentation of the subject from the times of the apostolic fathers to those of the Caroline divines, full of quotations, acute, incisive, and brilliant. But it is the brief of a controversialist.

Toplady was a prolific essayist and letter correspondent and wrote on a wide range of topics. He was interested in the natural world and in animals. He composed a short work "Sketch of Natural History, with a few particulars on Birds, Meteors, Sagacity of Brutes, and the solar system", wherein he set down his observations about the marvels of nature, including the behavior of birds, and illustrations of wise actions on the part of various animals.

Toplady also considered the problem of evil as it relates to the sufferings of animals in "A Short Essay on Original Sin", and in a public debate delivered a speech on "Whether unnecessary cruelty to the brute creation is not criminal?". In this speech he repudiated brutality towards animals and also affirmed his belief that the Scriptures point to the resurrection of animals.

Toplady's position about animal brutality and the resurrection were echoed by his contemporaries Joseph Butler, Richard Dean, Humphry Primatt and John Wesley, and throughout the 19th century other Christian writers such as Joseph Hamilton, George Hawkins Pember, George N.H. Peters, Joseph Seiss, and James Macauley developed the arguments in more detail in the context of the debates about animal welfare, animal rights, and vivisection.

Hymns

Toplady was the author of the fine hymn, "Rock of ages cleft for me," which was published in the Gospel Magazine in October 1775, probably soon after it was written, although a local tradition associates its symbolism with a rocky gorge in the parish of Blagdon, his 1st curacy (Julian, Dict. of Hymnology, 970). It does not appear in his early volume, Poems on Sacred Subjects, 1759. It was translated into Latin by Gladstone in 1839.

Montgomery puts Toplady's hymns on a level with those of Charles Wesley, but that is too high an estimate. The best, after "Rock of Ages," is "Deathless Principle, arise," a soliloquy to the soul of the type of Pope's "Vital Spark."

Miscellaneous

Toplady's other works include:

1. ‘The Church of England vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism,’ 1769.
2. ‘The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity asserted,’ 1775.
3. ‘A Collection of Hymns,’ 1776.
4. ‘A Course of Prayer,’ 1790? (16 later editions).

Recognition

Toplady was buried in Tottenham Court Chapel, where a marble tablet, with the motto

Rock of Ages cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee,

was erected to his memory. Rowland Hill, apparently unsolicited, pronounced a eulogy on him at the funeral.

Publications

Poetry

• Poems on Sacred Subjects. Dublin: S. Powell, 1759.
• Hymns and Sacred Poems: On a variety of divine subjects; comprising the whole of the poetical remains. London: D. Sedgwick / Hamilton, Adams, 1860.

Non-fiction

• Joy in Heaven; and The creed of devils; with a word concerning apparitions: Two sermons. London: J. Murgatroyd / J. Matthews, 1788.
• Free-will and Merit Fairly Examined; or, Men not their own saviors.
• A Course of Prayer: For each day in the week. London: W. Row / J. Parsons / J. Deighton / J. Barker, 1790.
• A Caveat against Unsound Doctrines: Being the substance of a sermon . Perth, UK: R. Morison junior, for R. Morison & Son, et al, 1793.

Collected editions

• Works. London: W. Row, 1794; London: J.J. Chidley, 1837; Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1987. ISBN 1-59442-078-5

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Hymns

• Compared with Christ, in all beside n. 760 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1772)
• Deathless spirit, now arise n. 1381 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1776)
• Holy Ghost, dispel our sadness n. 80 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1776). Modernising of John Christian Jacobi's translation (1725) of Paul Gerhardts hymn from 1653.
• How happy are the souls above n. 1434 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1776) (? A. M. Topladys text)
• Inspirer and hearer of prayer n. 30 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1774)
• O thou, that hear'st the prayer of faith n. 642 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1176)
• Praise the Lord, who reigns above n. 160 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1759)
• Rock of ages, cleft for me n. 697 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1776)
• Surely Christ thy griefs hath borne n. 443 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1759)
• What, though my frail eye-lids refuse n. 29 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1774)
• When langour and disease invade n. 1032 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1778)
• Your harps, ye trembling saints n. 861 in The Church Hymn book 1872 (1772)

Rock of Ages

See also

• List of British poets
• List of English-language hymnists

References

•  Bennett, Henry Leigh (1899) "Toplady, Augustus Montague" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 57 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 57-59  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 13,2018.

External links

Lyrics

• Toplady, Augustus Montague {1 lyric} at Representative Poetry Online.
• Augustus Montague Toplady at PoemHunter
• Augustus Toplady at Hymnary (profile & 154 hymns)

Books

• Works by Augustus Toplady at Project Gutenberg
• Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Worship by Augustus Toplady (1776)

About

• The story behind "Rock of Ages" and a brief biography
• Toplady and His Ministry by J. C. Ryle
• Site with a detailed Toplady bibliography

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Toplady, Augustus Montague