# Augustus Toplady vs. John Wesley



## Herald (Aug 6, 2007)

On this Lord's Day we sang a hymn written by Augustus Toplady. Wanting to know more about the man I did a Google search on his name. I found this interesting letter written to John Wesley. The link also contains a follow up letter since Wesley refused to answer the first.

*Toplady vs. Wesley*


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## beej6 (Aug 6, 2007)

The link shows a letter to John Wesley, is this the correct one?


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## Herald (Aug 6, 2007)

Yes. My bad. John Wesley, not Charles. Sorry about the mistake.


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## Bladestunner316 (Aug 6, 2007)

Thanks for posting this Bill! Im a little tired but defintely going to read it!


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## AV1611 (Aug 6, 2007)

BaptistInCrisis said:


> On this Lord's Day we sang a hymn written by Augustus Toplady. Wanting to know more about the man I did a Google search on his name. I found this interesting letter written to Charles Wesley. The link also contains a follow up letter since Wesley refused to answer the first.
> 
> *Toplady vs. Wesley*



I own a copy of Toplady's Complete Works. Well worth it if you have the cash spare and is published by _Sprinkle Publications_ I believe.


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## Semper Fidelis (Aug 6, 2007)

Man, these guys could upbraid!


> May you at last begin to act from this principle, and no longer prostitute your time and talents to the wiredrawing of chicanery, and the circulation of error! I am not insensible of your parts: but alas! what is distinguished ability, if not wedded to integrity? No less just than ingenious is the remark of a learned and noble writer: "The riches of the mind, like those of fortune, may be employed so perversely as to become a nuisance and a pest, instead of an ornament and support to society.


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## Reformed Baptist (Aug 6, 2007)

Oh how wonderful to see men acting like men.


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## Herald (Aug 6, 2007)

Reformed Baptist said:


> Oh how wonderful to see men acting like men.



Apparently Wesley never responded to Toplady's letters. On the surface it seems like one man acting like a man.


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## Reformed Baptist (Aug 6, 2007)

I'm about half-way through the discourse. The only thing I keep finding hard to believe is Toplady's testimony to Wesley's behavior. Did Wesley truly act so pernicous?


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## Semper Fidelis (Aug 6, 2007)

Reformed Baptist said:


> I'm about half-way through the discourse. The only thing I keep finding hard to believe is Toplady's testimony to Wesley's behavior. Did Wesley truly act so pernicous?



I think men didn't take as kindly to being dishonest as we do today. We tend to be more pragmatic about such things these days so it's OK when Rick Warren uses multiple translations and eisegesis to make a point - the important thing is that he gets a message across.


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## Herald (Aug 6, 2007)

> I think men didn't take as kindly to being dishonest as we do today.



Obviously John Wesley didn't take kindly to his dishonesty being pointed out!


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## JohnOwen007 (Aug 6, 2007)

Reformed Baptist said:


> The only thing I keep finding hard to believe is Toplady's testimony to Wesley's behavior. Did Wesley truly act so pernicous?



Toplady's written work against Wesley is well-known as a great low-point in reformed history. It's agonizing to read Toplady's vitriol and hard to imagine the same man writing "Rock of Ages, cleft for me". However, there is a lesson for us here. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.


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## Reformed Baptist (Aug 6, 2007)

JohnOwen007 said:


> Toplady's written work against Wesley is well-known as a great low-point in reformed history. It's agonizing to read Toplady's vitriol and hard to imagine the same man writing "Rock of Ages, cleft for me". However, there is a lesson for us here. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.




So are you saying that Toplady did not represent truthfully what Wesley had done? As for his tone and manner in the treatise, I see nothing worthy of blame, unless we blame the shephard for using his rod too much. But my question dealt with the accurasey of Todlady's testimony concerning Wesley.


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## py3ak (Aug 6, 2007)

J.C. Ryle remarked (I believe in _Christian Leaders of the Last Century_ that if we had only read Toplady's hymns we could never believe that he written his his polemics, and if only read his polemics we could never believe that he had written those hymns. He was also buried 17 (?) feet deep.

I did like the anecdote about Toplady, that he told a bookstore owner that he had as soon wear ready-made clothes as but a ready-made sermon. Alas, for the decline of the tailor!


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## caddy (Aug 6, 2007)

Toplady and His Ministry

http://www.btinternet.com/~alan.s.flint/toplady/toplady_ryle.htm


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## Calvibaptist (Aug 6, 2007)

Whatever happened to "Can't we all just get along?"

Sometimes I long for the days when people weren't so apologetic in dealing with error. Unless, of course, the dealing was directed at me!


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## Israelite (Aug 30, 2007)

“It has also been suggested, that ‘Mr. Wesley is a very laborious man;’ not more laborious, I presume, than a certain active being, who is said to go to and fro in the earth, and walk up and down in it: nor yet more laborious, I should imagine, than certain ancient Sectarians, concerning whom it was long ago said, ‘Woe unto you Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte:’ … Mr. Sellon, moreover, reminds me (p. 128) that, ‘while the shepherds are quarrelling, the wolf gets into the sheep fold;’ not impossible: but it so happens that the present quarrel is not among ‘the shepherds,’ but with the ‘wolf’ himself; which ‘quarrel’ is warranted by every maxim of pastoral meekness and fidelity.” 
(Augustus Toplady, Complete Works, p. 54)


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