Augustus Toplady

Three of his other hymns – "A Debtor to Mercy Alone", "Deathless Principle, Arise" and "Object of My First Desire" – are still occasionally sung today.

Toplady underwent a religious awakening in August 1755, "but not, as has been falsely reported, under Mr. John Wesley, or any preacher connected with him".

In his own diary, he wrote "I was awakened in the month of August, 1755, but not, as has been falsely reported, under Mr. John Wesley, or any preacher connected with him.

I was not led into a full and clear view of all the doctrines of grace, till the year 1758, when, through the great goodness of God, my Arminian prejudices received an effectual shock, in reading Dr. Manton’s Sermons on the 17th of St.

There, Toplady met and was influenced by several prominent Calvinist ministers, including George Whitefield, John Gill, and William Romaine.

"[3] 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.

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 ordained priest in 1764, Toplady returned to London briefly, and then served as curate of Farleigh Hungerford for a little over a year (1764–65).

Toplady also considered the problem of evil as it relates to the sufferings of animals in A Short Essay on Original Sin, and in a public debate delivered a speech on Whether unnecessary cruelty to the brute creation is not criminal?.

[9] Wesley took exception to the publication of Toplady's translation of Zanchius's work on predestination in 1769 and published, in turn, an abridgment of that work titled The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted, adding his own comment that "The sum of all is this: One in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated.

[citation needed] Toplady published a response in the form of A Letter to the Rev Mr John Wesley; Relative to His Pretended Abridgement of Zanchius on Predestination.

[a] Subsequently, Wesley avoided direct correspondence with Toplady, famously stating in a letter of 24 June 1770 that "I do not fight with chimney-sweepers.

"[11] Toplady spent his last three years mainly in London, preaching regularly in a French Calvinist chapel at Orange Street (off Haymarket), most spectacularly in 1778, when he appeared to rebut charges being made by Wesley's followers that he had renounced Calvinism on his deathbed.