[6] Not withstanding the bitter pamphlet war between Augustus Toplady and John Wesley over the correctness of Calvinist versus Arminian theology,[7] there has been speculation by some, that although Toplady was a Calvinist, the edited version of the words, "Be of sin the double cure, Save from wrath, and make me pure," suggests he agreed with the teachings of the Methodist preacher under whom he received his religious conversion, and of his contemporary, John Wesley, who taught the "double cure", in which a sinner is saved by the atonement of Jesus, and cleansed from inbred sin by the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

[8] However, Toplady's own published 1776 hymn text, the version now referred to as 'alt', contains a variant different from Wesley's teachings and reads: "Be of sin the double cure, Save me from its guilt and power".

[9] In the United States "Rock of Ages" is usually sung to the hymn tune Toplady by Thomas Hastings as revised by Lowell Mason.

[13] In his book Hymns That Have Helped, W. T. Stead reported "when the SS London went down in the Bay of Biscay, 11 January 1866, the last thing which the last man who left the ship heard as the boat pushed off from the doomed vessel was the voices of the passengers singing 'Rock of Ages'".

[15] The hymn has appeared in other languages including German (as "Fels des Heils")[16] and Swedish ("Klippa, du som brast för mig").

[citation needed] There are also Latin translations by William Gladstone as "Jesus, pro me perforatus" and by Canadian linguist Silas Tertius Rand as "Rupes saeculorum, te".