Augustus Toplady (1740-1778)

Augustus Montague Toplady was an Anglican cleric and hymn writer. He is best remembered as the author of the hymn ‘Rock of Ages’.

Augustus was born in Farnham, Surrey, England. His father Richard, who was probably Irish, was a major in the Royal Marines. He fought in the War of Jenkin’s Ear (1739-42) and died most likely from yellow fever.

This meant his mother, Catherine, raised the boy alone. They moved to Westminster and he attended the local school from 1750-55. They moved to Ireland where he attended Trinity College, Dublin.

August 1755 Augustus heard a sermon preached by James Morris in a barn in Codymain, co. Wexford . The text was Ephesians ch 2 v 13 *But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who were sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

He remembered this sermon when he received his effectual calling from God.
Having under gone his conversion under the preaching of a Methodist preacher he initially followed John Wesley in supporting Arminianism. Aged 18 he read other material by Thomas Manton and Jerome Zanchius which convinced him that Calvinism was correct. (See Calvinism - Arminian debate etc. sheets)

1759 Augustus, aged 19, published his first book Poems of Sacred Subjects.

1760 graduated from Trinity College and returned to Westminster. John Gill encouraged him to publish his translation of Jerome Zanchius’ work on predestination.

1762 ordained as an Anglican deacon and appointed curate at Blagdon in the Mendip Hills in Somerset. 1763 wrote Rock of Ages. 1764 ordained priest.
In 1766 he becomes the incumbent, through simony (bought by the church), of Harpford and Venn Ottery, 2 villages in Devon. He moves to the Devon village of Broadhembury where he stays until his death in 1778 -but from 1775 he has leave of absence.

The Calvinist controversy went on for 9 years (1768-78). Augustus Toplady v John Wesley. Arminianism v Calvinism. Was the Church of England historically Calvinist or Arminian? The debate peaked when Augustus in 1774 when he published his 700 page The Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England. (See’ Calvinist controversialist: 1769-78’)

Toplady and Wesley relationship had initially been cordial but it became increasingly bitter.

He spent the last 3 years of his life mainly in London. preaching regularly in a French Calvinist(!) chapel in Orange steer, off the Haymarket.

His volume of psalms and hymns for Public and private worship were published in 1776. Of the 419 hymns several were written by him.

Augustus of died tuberculosis on 11th August 1778. He is buried at Whitefield’s Tabernacle, Tottenham Court Road.

Thank you for Rock of Ages
He was impulsive, rash-spoken, reckless in misjudgement; but a flame of genuine devoutness burned in the fragile lamp of his overtasked and wasted body. Rev. A.B. Grosart, D.D., LL.D.

Sources used
5 minutes in Church History
Britannica Online Encyclopedia
hymnary.org
John Wesley’s Journal
wikipedia