Augustus Montague Toplady (1740 - 1778) was one of the most zealous defenders of the Christian faith to ever arise. Puritan in doctrine, he fiercely assaulted -- and very correctly so -- the rampant dishonesty of John Wesley and his foul heresies, and with great success. Toplady was also close friends with the likes of Whitefield, Romaine, Berridge, Gill, Serle, and other eminent Christians of those times. Like these men, Toplady was a powerful preacher in his own right, but his distinguishing mark was probably his theological abilities, a field in which he appears to be matched by very few men throughout the entire history of Christianity. Although the Lord saw fit to call Augustus Toplady home at the young age of thirty-eight, his intensity and zeal for the truth as it is in Jesus left an inexhaustible supply of refreshment for the Church Militant, not only by his penetrating exposition of doctrine, but by his mighty hymns, such as Rock Of Ages, and he shall in no wise lose his reward.

"What do you think your song will be when you come to heaven? Blessed be God, that he gave me free-will; and blessed be my own dear self, that I made a good use of it? O no, no! Such a song as that was never heard in heaven yet, nor ever will, while God is God, and heaven is heaven." What Will Be Your Song

"The church below may be liable to err, and if any visible church upon earth pretends to be infallible, the very pretension itself demonstrates that she is not so." What Will Be Your Song

"I will venture to assert that not one grain of Arminianism ever attended a saint into heaven... They may be compared to Paul, when he went from Jerusalem to Damascus, and the grace of God struck him down: he fell a free-willer; but he rose a free-gracer." What Will Be Your Song

"Every religion except one puts upon you doing something in order to recommend yourself to God. It is only the religion of Christ (which runs counter to all the rest by affirming that we are saved and called with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to the Father's own purpose and grace) which was not sold out to us on certain conditions to be fulfilled by ourselves, but was given us in Christ before the world began." The Religion Of Christ

"If anything can awake astonishment, and inflame our gratitude, it must be that mystery of love, God manifested in our nature, and made man, to bleed and die for our salvation. That He should condescend to be sold for thirty shekels of silver, that is, for three pounds fifteen shillings of our money; to be apprehended and condemned as a malefactor; to be crowned with piercing thorns; to be scourged at the bloody pillar; to bear His cross; to be numbered with transgressors; to be reviled by ruffianly soldiers, and a merciless populace; to be torn with tormenting nails; and pierced with a hostile spear; and suspended on the ignominious tree, between heaven and earth, as unworthy of either, though He was the maker and preserver of both. What thought can reach, what tongue can tell, the infinite riches of His love to man, that induced Him freely to undergo all this, only to make him happy! Nay, He not only freely underwent it, but even longed for the time of His crucifixion to come: I have a baptism -- says He -- a baptism of sufferings to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?" The Mystery Of His Love

"If it be so very absurd, to worship the work of other men's hands what must it be, to worship the works of our own hands?... let me tell you, that trust, confidence, reliance, and dependence, for salvation, are all acts and very solemn ones too, of divine worship: and upon whatsoever you depend, whether in whole or in part, for your acceptance with God, and for your justification in his sight, whatsoever, you rely upon, and trust in, for the attainment of grace or glory; if it be any thing short of God in Christ, you are an idolater for all intents and purposes." The God Of Arminianism

"Our free-willers and our chance mongers tell us that God does not do whatsoever he pleases; that there are a great number of things, which God wishes to do, and rags and strives to do, and yet cannot bring to pass. Is their god the Bible's God? Certainly not. Their god submits to difficulties which he cannot help himself out of, and endeavours to make himself easy under millions and millions of inextricable embarrassments, uncomfortable disappointments, and mortifying defeats. This said scheme ascends, on the ladder of blasphemy, to the mountaintop of atheism; and then hurls itself from that precipice, into the gulf of blind, adamantine necessity, in order to prove mankind free agents!" The God Of Arminianism

"One great contest between the religion of Arminianism and the religion of Christ is -- who shall stand entitled to the praise and glory of a sinner's salvation? Conversion decides this point at once." The God Of Arminianism

"Other objects may be overrated and too highly esteemed; but so transcendent, so infinite, is the excellency of Christ, that he is, and will be to all eternity, more lovely than beloved. Yet, though all the love possible for saints and angels to show, falls, and will always fall, infinitely short of the Saviour's due: still it is a blessed privilege to love him at all, though in ever so faint a manner, and in ever so low a degree. They that love him at all, wish to love him more: and more and more they shall love him, through the ages of endless duration in heaven, where they shall be like him, and see him as he is." The Blessed Privilege Of Loving Him

"Every man is a fallen creature; and to the corruption of his nature is hourly adding the accumulated iniquity of actual transgressions. Therefore, by such a partial, imperfect, and polluted conformity to the moral law, no person can possibly be accepted unto life. And yet, without justification, man must be lost forever. He must, therefore, either give up all hope of salvation, or seek for a justifying righteousness at the hand of Christ. Now Christ came for this very end, to fulfill all righteousness; not for himself, who was and is the source and center of all holiness; but for us, who had lost our original rectitude, and are become the degenerate plants of a strange vine. The Son of God left his glory that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled for us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Justifying Righteousness At The Hand Of Christ

"Did the Spirit of God ever convince you of sin? Do you see yourself liable to the curse of the law, and the just vengeance of God, for the innate depravity of your nature, and the transgressions of your life? Do you come to Christ humbled and self-condemned: sensible that unless you are clothed with the merits of Him our Elder Brother, you are ruined and undone, and can never stand with joy or safety before the holy Lord God?... If you never felt, nor desire to feel this work of the Holy Ghost upon thy heart, this conviction of sin, this penitential faith, all the supposed righteousness of thine own, wherein thou trusted, is but a broken reed; a painted sepulchre; and the trappings of a Pharisee." Did The Spirit Of God Ever Convince You Of Sin?

"Although the great and ever blessed God is a Being absolutely simple, and infinitely remote from all shadow of composition; he is, nevertheless, in condescension to our weak and contracted faculties, represented in Scripture as possessed of divers properties, or attributes, which, though seemingly different from his essence, are in reality essential to him, and constitutive of his very nature." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"God knows nothing now, nor will know any thing hereafter, which he did not know and foresee from everlasting: his foreknowledge being co-eternal with himself, and extending to every thing that is or shall be done... This foreknowledge of God is not conjectural and uncertain, for then it would not be foreknowledge, but most sure and infallible; so that whatever he foreknows to be future shall necessarily and undoubtedly come to pass." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"God's foreknowledge, taken abstractedly, is not the sole cause of beings and events; but his will and foreknowledge together. Hence we find, Acts ii.23, that his determinate counsel and foreknowledge act in concert; the latter resulting from, and being founded on, the former." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"Although the will of God, considered in itself, is simply one and the same; yet, in condescension to the present capacities of men, the divine will is very properly distinguished into secret and revealed... The will of God, respecting the salvation and condemnation of men, is never contrary to itself; he immutably wills the salvation of the elect, and vice versa: nor can he ever vary or deviate from his own will in any instance whatever, so as that should be done which he willeth not; or that not be brought to pass which he willeth." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"God's hidden will is peremptory and absolute; and, therefore, cannot be hindered from taking effect... Whatever comes to pass comes to pass by virtue of this absolute, omnipotent will of God, which is the primary and supreme cause of all things... Hence, we find every matter resolved ultimately into the spring and occasion of whatsoever is done in heaven and earth." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"Though the blood of Christ, from its own intrinsic dignity, was sufficient for the redemption of all men; yet, in consequence of his Father's appointment, he shed it intentionally, and, therefore, effectually and immediately, for the elect only." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"Whoever is left under the power of final unbelief is thereby evidenced to be one of those for whom Christ did not die; but all for whom he suffered shall be, in this life, sooner or later, endued with faith." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"No one can deny that God permits sin; but he neither permits it ignorantly nor unwillingly; therefore, knowingly and willingly... However, it should be carefully noticed that God's permission of sin does not arise from his taking delight in it; on the contrary, sin, as sin, is the abominable thing that his soul hateth; and his efficacious permission of it is for wise and good purposes." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"As God knows nothing now which he did not know from all eternity; so he wills nothing now which he did not will from everlasting." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"Whatever things God wills or does, are not willed and done by him because they were, in their own nature, and previously to his willing them, just and right; or because, from their intrinsic fitness, he ought to will and do them; but they are therefore just, right, and proper, because He who is holiness itself wills and does them." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"Those who deny the power God has of doing as he will with his creatures, and exclaim against unconditional decrees as cruel, tyrannical, and unjust; either know not what they say nor whereof they affirm; or are willful blasphemers of his name, and perverse rebels against his sovereignty: to which at last, however unwillingly, they will be forced to submit." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"Whatever favour is bestowed on us; whatever good thing is in us, or wrought by us; whether in will, word, or deed; and whatever blessings else we receive from God, from election quite home to glorification, all proceed, merely and entirely, from the good pleasure of his will, and his mercy towards us in Christ Jesus. To him, therefore, the praise is due, who putteth the difference between man and man, by having compassion on some and not on others." Observations On The Divine Attributes

"God cannot love even his elect as considered in themselves, because in that view they are guilty, polluted sinners; but they were, from all eternity, objects of his love as they stood united to Christ and partakers of his righteousness." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Sinners who are not interested in Christ cannot but be infinitely displeasing to, and loathsome in, the sight of eternal purity." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"All beings whatever, from the highest angel to the meanest reptile, and from the meanest reptile to the minutest atom, are the objects of God's eternal decrees and particular providence." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"We, with the Scriptures, assert that there is a predestination of some particular persons to life, for the praise of the glory of divine grace; and a predestination of other particular persons to death: which death of punishment they shall inevitably undergo, and that justly, on account of their sins." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Many are called, but few chosen; i.e. the gospel revelation comes indiscriminately to great multitudes; but few, comparatively speaking, are spiritually and eternally the better for it, and these few, to whom it is the savour of life unto life, are therefore savingly benefited by it, because they are the chosen or elect of God." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"It was an act of grace, in God, to choose any, when he might have passed by all: it was an act of sovereign grace to choose this man rather than that: when both were equally undone in themselves, and alike obnoxious to his displeasure." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Sin is the meritorious and immediate cause of any man's damnation... as all sin is properly meritorious of eternal death, and all men are sinners; they who are condemned are condemned most justly; and those who are saved are saved in a way of sovereign mercy, through the vicarious obedience and death of Christ for them." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"God was either willing that Adam should fall, or unwilling, or indifferent about it. If God was unwilling that Adam should transgress, how came it to pass that he did? Is man stronger, and is Satan wiser, than he that made them? Surely, no... if God had not willed the fall, he could, and no doubt would, have prevented it; but he did not prevent it, ergo he willed it. And if he willed it he certainly decreed it; for the decree of God is nothing else but the seal and ratification of his will." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"We assert that the number of the elect, and also of the reprobate, is so fixt and determinate that neither can be augmented nor diminished. It is written of God that he telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names. Now it is as incompatible with the infinite wisdom and knowledge of the all-comprehending God to be ignorant of the names and number of the rational creatures he has made, as that he should be ignorant of the stars and other inanimate products of his almighty power." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Those who are ordained unto eternal life were not so ordained on account of any worthiness foreseen in them, or of any good works to be wrought by them, nor yet for their future faith, but purely and solely of free, sovereign grace, and according to the mere pleasure of God." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Faith, repentance, and holiness are no less the free gifts of God than eternal life." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"They who are predestinated to life are likewise predestinated to all those means which are indispensably necessary in order to their meetness for entrance upon and enjoyment of that life; such as repentance, faith, sanctification, and perseverance in these to the end." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"God, as we have already more than once had occasion to observe, does nothing in time which he did not from eternity resolve within himself to do." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"God did, from all eternity, decree to leave some of Adam's fallen posterity in their sins, and to exclude them from the participation of Christ and his benefits... let it be observed that in all ages, the much greater part of mankind have been destitute even of the external means of grace; have not been favoured with the preaching of God's word, or any revelation of his will." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"God permits nothing which he did not resolve and determine to permit. His permission is a positive, determinate act of his will." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Though God determined to leave, and actually does leave, whom he pleases in the spiritual darkness and death of nature, out of which he is under no obligation to deliver them; yet he does not positively condemn any of these, merely because he hath not chosen them, but because they have sinned against him." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Out of a world of rebels equally involved in guilt, God -- who might, without any impeachment of his justice, have passed by all, as he did the reprobate angels -- was most unquestionably at liberty, if it so pleased him, to extend the sceptre of his clemency to some, and to pitch upon whom he would as the objects of it." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"None are or will be punished but for their iniquities." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Nothing comes to pass -- much less can the condemnation of a rational creature -- but in consequence of the will and decree of God." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"The grand principal end proposed by the Deity to himself in his formation of all things, and of mankind in particular, was, the manifestation and display of his own glorious attributes." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"The gospel is to be preached, and that not partially and by piece-meal, but the whole of it... An ambassador is to deliver the whole message with which he is charged. He is to omit no part of it, but must declare the mind of the sovereign he represents fully and without reserve." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"There is hardly a page in St. John's gospel which does not, either expressly or implicitly, make mention of election and reprobation." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"A Deity without decrees, and decrees without immutability, are, of all inventions that ever entered the heart of man, the most absurd." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"What is predestination but God's decree to save some of his mere goodness, and to condemn others in his just judgment?" The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Grace alone makes the elect gracious; grace alone keeps them gracious; and the same grace alone will render them everlastingly glorious in the heave of heavens." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Conversion and salvation must, in the very nature of things, be wrought and effected, either by ourselves alone, or by ourselves and God together, or solely by God himself. The Pelagians were for the first. The Arminians are for the second. True believers are for the last." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"Exclude, therefore, O Christian, the article of sovereign predestination from thy ministry or from thy faith, and acquit thyself, if thou art able, from the charge of robbing God." The Doctrine Of Absolute Predestination

"I once devoted a considerable share of time and attention to the fathers. But, I scruple not to acknowledge, that, after a while, I desisted from this study as barren and unimproving. Some excellent things are, indeed, interspersed in their writings: but the golden grains are almost lost amidst an infinity of rubbish." An Enquiry Into The Judgment Of The Earliest Fathers

"One page of St. Austin is worth a thousand of most other fathers; but one page of St. Paul is worth a thousand of St. Austin's." An Enquiry Into The Judgment Of The Earliest Fathers

"Though hope is, perhaps, one of the lowest on the round of Christian graces; yet, a Christian grace it is: and the hope, which has the finished redemption of Jesus for its object, shall be crowned with everlasting glory, by him who will never break a bruised reed, nor quench a smoking flax." An Enquiry Into The Judgment Of The Earliest Fathers

"Reader, may the same happy coalition of fear and faith; may the most absolute self-distrust, united with an unshaken confidence in the stability of divine grace, be your portion, and mine, till we enter the haven of everlasting joy: where we shall no longer stand in need of faith, to fill our sails, nor of fear, to steady us with its ballast!" An Enquiry Into The Judgment Of The Earliest Fathers