Toplady.org.uk

Toplady was born an only child at Farnham in 1740, his father had died six months previously while serving with the army in South America. Toplady’s early years were spent on the shadow of his doting mother and when he was nine or ten they relocated to Westminster where the young Augustus attended Westminster School. In 1755 Toplady’s mother removed to Ireland (in order to secure some property there) with her son, who had now finished school. In the same year Toplady enrolled at Trinity College, Dublin. In August 1756 while visiting his mother At Wexford Toplady attended an informal meeting where he heard an uneducated lay preacher (James Morris) preach to such effect that:

"Under that sermon, I was, I trust, brought nigh by the blood of Christ, in August, 1756. Strange that I, who had so long sat under means of grace in England, should be brought nigh unto God in an obscure part of Ireland, amid a handful of God's people met together in a barn, and under the ministry of one who could hardly spell his name!”

Toplady always dated his conversion to this moment and it was during this period that Toplady wrote Poems on Sacred Subject., Toplady exchanged letters with John Wesley by his own words it was an Arminian doctrine that he had embraced.

"a more haughty and violent freewiller within the compass of the four seas."

Toplady had always planned to enter the Church, but he decided at this stage to enter the non-conformist ministry as he recognised that his Arminian beliefs were contrary to the thirty nice articles of the Church of England. At the age of 18 (in 1758)Toplady read "Manton's Discourses on the Seventeenth of John" and almost immediately embraced the Calvinistic doctrine of a sovereign God, stating that:

"I shall remember the year 1758 with gratitude and joy;"

It is this Gospel that Toplady passionately defended for the rest of his life, a typical Toplady comment was heard when he was asked "would you, if you were God, create any being to misery?" Toplady's response was "When I am God, I will tell you."

It was during these years that Toplady's character shone through. He frequented dissenting Churches where the Gospel was faithfully preached but restricted taking Communion to the established Church, the Church for which he intended enter the ministry. At this stage Toplady translated the text of "The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination stated and asserted" from the Latin of Jerom Zanchius Toplady and his mother returned to London in August of 1760, where he eagerly sat under the teaching of George Whitefield, William Romaine and John Gill.

As Toplady was approaching ordination the famous incident occurred where he was approached by a well known bookseller when leaving the shop he was asked:

"Sir, you will soon be ordained. I suppose you have not laid in a very great stock of sermons. I can supply you with as many sets as you please. All originals: very excellent ones and they will come for a trifle." Toplady's response was that "I certainly shall never be a customer to you in that way, for I am of opinion that the man who cannot or will not make his own sermons is quite unfit to wear the gown." The bookseller responded "Nay, young gentleman, do not be surprised at my offering you ready-made sermons, for I assure you I have sold ready-made sermons to many a bishop in my time. "Toplady responded by stating that "if you have any concern for the credit of the Church of England, never tell that news to anybody else from thenceforward for ever."

The Church of England may have been in moral crisis, Toplady certainly was not.

Toplady was ordained in 1762 and was licensed as Curate at Blagdon in Somerset, leaving this position in April of 1764 and he held a few short lived position until he was appointed to the benefice of Harpford with Fen Ottery in April 1766 a living he exchanged for the living at Broad Hembury in March of 1768. Toplady often traveled to London, maintaining his links with the great men of the Church and the issues of the day. This concern led to the publication of The Church of England vindicated from the charge of Arminianism in 1769

Toplady's wit can be seen when a friend observed that he rarely used a horse and commented that:

"Mr. Toplady believes in absolute predestination, and yet he is loath to ride on horse-back for fear of breaking his neck.", Toplady's response was "True, and perhaps that very fear may be an appointed means of preserving my neck unbroken."

Toplady finally published The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination stated and asserted" from the Latin of Jerom Zanchius in the same year.

The very concept of Calvinism was offensive to John Wesley and he saw Toplady's publication as a threat to his Arminian enterprise. George M. Ella believes that the passages that Wesley found to be particularly offensive were the quotes that :

'the number of the elect, and also the reprobate (those whom God has passed over in His work of salvation), is so fixed and determinate that neither can be augmented or diminished.'

and

"'Not one of the elect can perish, but they must all necessarily be saved.' `For this reason', Zanchius goes on to say, the elect "are styled vessels of mercy."

In 1770 Wesley published a tract entitled "The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination stated and asserted, by The Reverend Mr A_ T_" that abridged Toplady's work and ended with Wesley's words attributed to Toplady: