Augustus Toplady
By J. C. Philpot
The God of all grace raised up, equipped, and sent forth
many eminent ambassadors of the Gospel, in the middle of the last century,
whose names are still embalmed in the hearts of his living family; for among
the innumerable glories and excellencies of heavenly grace, this is not the
least of its beauty and blessedness, that wherever vitally manifested, it
lives and flourishes in death, through death, and beyond death. Like,
indeed, its divine Author and sovereign Giver, its beauty and glory are
hidden from the eyes of a profane and professing generation, that can no
more love and admire grace than Herod and Pontius Pilate or the Scribes and
Pharisees loved and admired Jesus Christ; but as in the days of his flesh,
there were those favored ones who "beheld his glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth," so are there those
now who still behold his glory, as made known to their souls in the grace of
the gospel. All that savors of his power and presence, of his Spirit and
love, is dear and estimable in their eyes. They love his servants, because,
as anointed by his Spirit, they testify of Him; and they love what is
uttered by their lips, or is traced by their pen, because, through their
word and witness, heavenly blessings are communicated to their souls.
Nor does death break the bond of union which makes them
and the church one in love. Their writings live when the hand that penned
them is moldered to dust; the power and savor that rested upon them in
life still anoints the records of their experience; and the same Jesus at
the right hand of the Father now bears testimony to them, as they once bore
testimony to him. Their persecutors have perished from the earth; their very
names are forgotten, or, if remembered, are only so by virtue of their
connection with the men whom they hated, as Alexander, the coppersmith, is
preserved from oblivion by his persecution of Paul. So true is it, that "the
name of the wicked shall rot," but "the righteous shall be in everlasting
remembrance." And why? But because as the Lord said to his disciples, "It is
not those who speak, but the Spirit of their Father which speaks in them;"
and what he speaks is like him of whom he testifies, "the same yesterday,
today, and forever." As, then, righteous Abel, by that faith of which he was
made a partaker, "being dead yet speaks," so out of their tombs, or rather
from their heavenly mansions, up to which faith follows them, do many
departed servants of God still speak by their writings, or by such
fragments of their living experience as are left on record. And in some
sense they are more honored and esteemed now than when they lived and walked
upon earth.
A great writer has said, "The evil that men do lives
after them; the good is often interred with their bones." This witness is
true as regards the children of men, whose evil is so great and good so
little; but is not true as regards the servants of God. Their frailties and
infirmities, however treasured up by a sneering world, are forgotten by the
Church of God, and what they were by the grace of God is alone remembered.
All in them that was mortal sank into the same grave with their tabernacles
of clay, and what was immortal still survives untainted by death or
corruption. So far as they were impregnated with life from the Fountain of
Life, their words still live, and the same grace that breathed and spoke in
them when their lips moved on earth, still speaks in their writings now that
their souls have passed into glory.
But while we love the men, we do not idolize their names
or canonize their writings. They are not Jesus, nor are their books the
Bible. We love them because they loved Jesus, and we love their writings
because they testify of him to us. What he made them they only then were,
and what he makes them to us they only now are.
Among the eminent saints and servants of God, who lived
in the last century, few have exercised a greater influence in the church of
Christ than Toplady. He was raised up at a peculiar juncture, just
when John Wesley was sowing his tares in the gospel field, and fighting with
all the desperate enmity of his crafty mind against the sovereignty of God.
Wesley was no common antagonist; and it needed a man of great natural powers
of mind, acuteness, and force of intellect, undaunted fearlessness,
readiness of pen, and above all, a deep experimental acquaintance with the
truth, to meet and overthrow him in the field of conflict.
John Wesley had on his side nearly everything that
could set off and recommend his flesh-pleasing doctrines. He had naturally
great clearness of mind and precision of thought, and a very simple, lucid
style of preaching and writing. These were backed by amazing zeal and
earnestness, most unwearied labors, great self-denial, a look and manner
almost apostolic, a large amount of outward holiness, and a singular power
of influencing and governing the minds of men. In his preaching and writing
there was so much scripture, torn and riven from its connection and
plausibly introduced, as to gild over his errors; and, as he dwelt much upon
the terrors of the law, and, to use the expression of his followers, "shook
his hearers over hell," he alarmed the conscience of many with legal
convictions, which he set himself to heal by preaching up fleshly holiness
and perfection in the flesh. Against the sovereignty of grace, the glorious
truths of personal election, particular redemption, imputed righteousness, a
finished work, and the certain perseverance of the saints of Christ, he
fought with all the subtlety, ingenuity, and violence that could be
displayed by the most daring rebel against God and godliness for more than
sixty years, getting worse the older he grew. As the acknowledged leader of
multitudes, he, by oceans of sermons, books, and tracts, filled hundreds and
thousands of his followers with as much enmity as himself against the
blessed plan of salvation by grace; and, determined to make a compact with
error, and shore it up with all the beams and buttresses of human policy, he
spared no labor, and shrank from no exertion to accomplish his end.
But just in the height of his war against the truths of
the gospel, a champion stepped forth from the ranks of the despised
Calvinists, who met him at the sword's point, beat his weapons out of his
hand, and laid his pride and self-righteousness in the dust. This champion
was the immortal Toplady.
A short sketch of this eminent saint and servant of God
may, perhaps, be suitable. He was born at Farnham, Surrey, on the 4th of
November, 1740, his father, who was a major in the army, dying at the siege
of Carthagena, soon after the birth of his son. He was partly educated at
Westminster school, that celebrated seminary where so many great men, and
among them, neither least nor last, the poet Cowper, have received that
training which fitted them to occupy the most eminent positions in the
State. But he was removed thence at an early period of his age by the
circumstance of his widowed mother going to Ireland to obtain a family
estate, so that he continued and finished his education at Trinity College,
Dublin. It was there chiefly that, by dint of hard and unwearied study, he
obtained that proficiency in the learned languages, and that great knowledge
of divinity and church history which appear so conspicuous in his
controversial writings. He certainly was possessed of very shining
abilities, of great penetration and acuteness of mind, of a peculiar fluency
of language, and at times of great elevation and even eloquence of
expression. To these great natural abilities was added an unwearied
perseverance, which made him study night and day.
All this he might have had independent of and distinct
from divine grace, and have lived and died an enemy to God and godliness.
But the Lord had designed him for great and eminent services in his
vineyard, and therefore, in his own time and way, called him by his grace.
We do not know the exact means the Lord employed to awaken him from his
sleep of death, but his mother was a gracious woman, and he sat under the
sound of the gospel before he went to Ireland. He has himself told us that
"he was awakened in August, 1756," but we know not how deeply he suffered
under the condemnation of a broken law and the guilty alarms of a conscience
made tender in the fear of God. The time and manner of his deliverance is
much better known, and was very marked and conspicuous. About a year after
his first awakening, when but sixteen years of age, he one evening went into
a barn at a place called Codymain, in Ireland, where a man named Morris was
preaching to a handful of people. There the Lord blessed and delivered his
soul from the bondage and curse of the law, and brought him near unto
himself by the blood of sprinkling. He thus speaks in his diary of that
memorable evening:
Feb. 29th, 1768.—At night, after my return from Exeter,
my desires were strongly drawn up to God. I could indeed say that I groaned
with groans of love, joy, and peace; but it was even with comfortable groans
which cannot be uttered. That sweet text, Eph. 2:3: "You who were once afar
off, are made near by the blood of Christ," was particularly delightful and
refreshing to my soul; and the more so as it reminded me of the days and
months that are past, even the days of my sensible espousals to the
bridegroom of the elect. It was from that passage that Mr. Morris preached
on the memorable evening of my effectual call by the grace of God. Under the
ministry of that dear messenger, and by that sermon, I was, I trust, brought
near by the blood of Christ, in August, 1756.
But though thus sensibly brought near by the blood of the
Lamb, much darkness rested on his mind respecting those heavenly truths,
which are usually called the doctrines of grace. For about two years was he
searching and inquiring into the truth, until the reading of Dr. Manton's
sermons on John 17 was blessed to his soul to lead him into, and establish
him upon the grand discriminating truths of sovereign grace. About four
years after this establishment of his soul in the truth of God, and six
years from the time of his deliverance in the barn, he was ordained a
minister of the Church of England.
Though unable ourselves to continue in that system, we
are not so bigoted as to deny that the Lord has had dear saints and eminent
servants of his, who lived and died in communion with it. Romaine, Berridge,
Toplady, and Hawker, where can we find four men or ministers more blessed of
God in their own souls, or in their ministry to others? In the Church of
England they were born and brought up; in it they preached and labored, and
God owned and blessed their labors; and in it they died in peace and joy,
and the full assurance of faith.
The objections, the well-grounded objections which have
compelled so many good men to leave her walls, were not laid upon their
consciences. The providence of God seemed to favor their continuance where
they were; and as the Lord overruled this circumstance to the effectual
calling and blessing of many under their ministry, what can we say? Who that
fears God and loves his truth would have lifted up his finger to prevent
Romaine preaching at St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street, or St. Anne's, Blackfriars,
to crowds of listening hearers? Who would not be glad were there such a
preacher in London now, whether he preached in Westminster Abbey or St.
Pancras Church? Who that loves the truth would wish to nail the pulpit door
against Dr. Hawker, as he walked up the aisle of Charles Church, Plymouth?
Had these great and good men felt as Mr. Brook and Mr. Birch felt, they
would have acted as Mr. Brook and Mr. Birch acted, and cast gown and
cassock, prayer-book and surplice to the moles and the bats.
But the errors and corruptions of the Church of England
which have forced so many good men out of her pale, were not laid with
weight and power on their conscience. They saw that she held truth, blessed
truth, for the most part in her articles, and there being an open door in
her communion to preach the gospel without hindrance, and being much blessed
in their own souls, and in the ministry, they continued to preach peace by
Jesus Christ without being disturbed in their consciences by what has been
an intolerable burden to other men of perhaps less grace than themselves,
but more exercised on these particular grounds.
But evil always produces evil, and the consequence of
these good men remaining in and sanctioning by their example a corrupt
system, has been to embolden others who have neither their grace nor their
gifts to stand out against all convictions themselves and to condemn those
who desire to act in the fear of God in this important matter.
Toplady evidently was greatly blessed in his own soul
both in private and in public, when a minister at Fen Ottery, and Harpford,
Somerset, and afterwards at Broad Hembury, Devon. No one who knows and loves
the truth can read his diary, never meant to be perused by mortal eye,
without seeing how, at times, his soul was blessed and favored.