Augustus Toplady Quotes

The elect are said to be engraven on Christ's hands: now, what is only painted may be rubbed out; or what is held may be let go; but what is graven cannot but remain.

Grace finds us beggars but leaves us debtors.

And let it ever be remembered, that our works do not precede us to the bar of God, so as to open the door of heaven, nor yet as heralds to clear our way there; but simply as witnesses, to give in their evidences, and deposit their attestation to the reality of our election, redemption, and conversion.

Recreations are needful at times; but take care of these two things, that your recreations be innocent in themselves, and that you be moderate in your use of them

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee,” is a line from Augustus Toplady’s famous hymn. Jesus is the place we run to when under any kind of attack, and we can hide in him for safety. The psalmist calls God “my God on whom I can rely” and, literally, “my unconditional love” (Psalm 144:2). Christians know that love must be unconditional, not based on our worthiness, but because Jesus was “cleft,” split apart, to make a hiding place for us. Prayer:

As a skillful physician, from a variety of herbs and plants, some of which are in their own nature poisonous, by a judicious mixture of them together, compounds medicines for the use of man; so God causes all things, even those which are seemingly hurtful, to conspire for the good of His elect.

Though I cannot entirely agree with you in supposing that extreme study has been the cause of my late indisposition, I must yet confess that the hill of science, like that of virtue, is in some instances climbed with labour. But when we get a little way up, the lovely prospects which open the eye make infinite amends for the steepness of the ascent. In short, I am wedded to these pursuits, as a man stipulates to take his wife; viz., for better, for worse, until death us do part. My thirst for knowledge is literally inextinguishable. And if I thus drink myself into a superior world, I cannot help it.

To be possessed of no more than momentary existence, and to have even that momentary existence filled up with more evil than good; to move, for a point of time, like bubbles on the surface of the world, and then to vanish, or be thrown into a mere blank, and swallowed up in the gulf of non-existence for ever; would not, cannot be consistent with the nature of that God who makes nothing in vain, and whose name is love.

Now, should a man attempt to go to court, clothed in filthy rags, and endeavor to gain admission to the royal presence in such raiment as that, would not he be refused entrance, and driven with indignation from the palace gate?--certainly he would; and can we expect to stand in the hour of death and day of judgment, undaunted before the holy Lord God, arrayed in no better robe, and defended with no better armour than that imperfect righteousness of ours, which the Scripture calls filthy rags?

Some are dismissed from life in the dawn of infancy; some in the morning of childhood; others in the noon of youth. The sands of some are continued longer; and a very few are permitted to see the night of what we generally term old age. Not a day, nor an hour; no, not a minute passes, wherein multitudes of all ages are not called away to stand before the holy Lord God. Death, that promiscuous reaper, pays no regard to years or station. The infant of a day, and the man of a century are alike to him; he mows the shooting blade and the mature stem: the growing and the grown unite to swell his harvest and augment his spoils. But is that which we term Death, the offspring of chance, or the result of accident? Surely, no. Death is a scythe! but if I may so speak, it is a scythe in the hand of God. Affliction, sickness, and dissolution, are messengers of His; which come not but at His command.

A hypocrite is like a stake, which, having no root, brings forth no genuine lasting fruit; and may easily be plucked up: whereas a true believer is just contrary.

Many who have escaped the rocks of gross sin have been cast away on the sands of self-righteousness.

In all His dispensations Christ chooses rather to profit His people than to please them.

A child of God is like a person in a beautiful palace: if there is light in it, he sees the splendid objects around him, and enjoys them; but if the light is removed, he is nevertheless in the palace still, and surrounded with the same splendid objects, as before, though he cannot see them. So, however the believer's frames and sensible comforts may have their ebbs and flows, his state, Godward, is invariably the same.

A man’s free will cannot cure him even of the toothache, or a sore finger; and yet he madly thinks it is in its power to cure his soul.

is the attitude expressed by the hymnwriter Augustus Toplady: “Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to thy cross I cling.” This attitude is the ultimate idol-smasher, for every idolatry is at root an effort towards self-justification. Every

The words of Augustus Toplady, written at the start of 1776, still hold true: “Providence, unerring providence, governs all events. And grace, unchangeable grace, is faithful to its purpose. May we live by faith on both.