Augustus Toplady

Augustus Montague Toplady

Augustus Montague Toplady (November 4, 1740 – August 11, 1778), was an Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer. He was a major Calvinist opponent of John Wesley. Today, he is best remembered as the author of the hymn "Rock of Ages". Three of his other hymns - "A Debtor to Mercy Alone", "Deathless Principle, Arise", and "Object of My First Desire" - are still occasionally sung today, though all three are far less popular than "Rock of Ages".

Background and early life, 1740-55

Augustus Toplady was born at Farnham, Surrey in November 1740.

His father, Richard Toplady, was probably from Enniscorthy, County Wexford in Ireland. Richard Toplady became a commissioned officer in the Royal Marines in 1739; by the time of his death, he had reached the rank of major. In May 1741, shortly after Augustus' birth, Richard participated in the Battle of Cartagena de Indias, the most significant battle of the War of Jenkins' Ear, during the course of which he died, most likely of yellow fever, leaving Augustus' mother to raise the boy alone.

Augustus' mother, Catherine, was the daughter of Richard Bate, who was the incumbent of Chilham from 1711 until his death in 1736. Catherine and her son moved from Farnham to Westminster, and, from 1750 to 1755, Augustus attended the Westminster School.

Years at Trinity College, Dublin, 1755-60

In 1755, Catherine and Augustus moved to Ireland, and Augustus was enrolled in Trinity College, Dublin.

Shortly thereafter, in August 1756, the 15-year-old Toplady attended a sermon preached by James Morris, a follower of John Wesley, in a barn in Codymain, co. Wexford. He would remember this sermon as the time at which he received his effectual calling from God.

Having undergone his religious conversion under the preaching of a Methodist, Toplady initially followed Wesley in supporting Arminianism. In 1758, however, the 18-year-old Toplady read Thomas Manton's seventeenth-century sermon on John 17 and Jerome Zanchius's Confession of the Christian Religion (1562). These works convinced Toplady that Calvinism, not Arminianism, was correct.

In 1759, Toplady published his first 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.

Ecclesiastical career, 1762-78

In 1762, Edward Willes, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, ordained Toplady as an Anglican deacon, appointing him curate of Blagdon, located in the Mendip Hills of Somerset.

Toplady wrote his famous hymn "Rock of Ages" in 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.

Upon being promoted to priest in 1764, Toplady returned to London briefly, and then served as curate of Farleigh Hungerford for a little over a year (1764-65). He then returned to stay with friends in London for 1765-66.

In May 1766, he became incumbent of Harpford and Venn Ottery, two villages in Devon. In 1768, however, he learned that he had been named to this incumbency because it had been purchased for him; seeing this as simony, he chose to exchange the incumbency for the post of vicar of Broadhembury, another Devon village. He would serve as vicar of Broadhembury until his death, although he received leave to be absent from Broadhembury from 1775 on.

Toplady never married, though he did have relationships with two women. The first was Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, the 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 Catharine Macaulay, whom he first met in 1773, and with whom he spent a large amount of time in the years 1773-77

Toplady as Calvinist controversialist, 1769-78

Toplady's first 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. Six evangelical students had been expelled from St Edmund Hall because of their evangelical views. Thomas Nowell, Oxford's professor of modern history, criticized these students for holding views inconsistent with the views of the Church of England. Toplady attacked Nowell's position with 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' 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. This work drew a vehement response from John Wesley, thus initiating a protracted pamphlet debate between Toplady and Wesley about whether the Church of England was historically Calvinist or Arminian. This debate peaked in 1774, when Toplady published his 700-page The 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 the career of William Laud. The section about the Synod of Dort contained a footnote identifying five basic propositions of the Calvinist faith, arguably the first appearance in print of the summary of Calvinism known as the "five points of Calvinism".

The relationship between Toplady and Wesley that had initially been cordial (involving exchanges of letters) in Toplady's arminian days became increasingly bitter and reached its nadir with the infamous "Zanchy affair". Wesley took exception to Toplady finally publishing his translation of Zanchius's work on predestination in 1769 and pieced together elements of Toplady's translation, taking them out of their context and more importantly adding his own comments and additions, additions that Toplady (or in all probability Zaanchius) did not agree with. Wesley published his work as "The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted", however in a move that enraged Toplady (and was also probably illegal, perhaps even a capital offence) Wesley signed his publication with Toplady's initials. Toplady tackled Wesley head on by publishing his response in the form of "A Letter to the Rev Mr John Wesley; Relative to His Pretended Abridgement of Zanchius on Predestination". Wesley never publicly accepted any wrongdoing on his part and avoided direct correspondance with Toplady.

Toplady mainly spent his last three years in London, preaching regularly in a French Calvinist chapel, most spectacularly in 1778, when he appeared to rebut charges being made by Wesley's followers that he had renounced Calvinism on his deathbed.

Toplady died of tuberculosis on 11 August 1778. He was buried at Whitefield's Tabernacle, Tottenham Court Road.

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
• Toplady, Augustus, The Complete Works of Augustus Toplady (Harrisonburg: Sprinkle Publications, 1987) ISBN 1-59442-078-5
• Arthur Pollard, "Augustus Toplady," in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

See also

• The Gospel Magazine which Toplady edited 1775-1776
• Rock of Ages written by Toplady and first printed in The Gospel Magazine

External links

• Toplady and His Ministry by J. C. Ryle
• The story behind "Rock of Ages" and a brief biography
• Hymns by Augustus Montague Toplady
• Site with several of Toplady's controversial works