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ROCK OF AGES
Augustus Toplady: The Little-Known Man Behind the Well-Known Hymn
Thomas Isham
Sadly, Augustus Toplady is not known as much as his most famous hymn 'Rock of Ages.' Thomas Isham seeks to redress that reality in his latest book. You will find out that the man who wrote this great hymn was a gifted and godly man who accomplished a great deal more than just writing a few worthy hymns that are still sung hundreds of years after his death. The man with the odd name was a true and noble champion for the Doctrines of Grace, and he did not shy away from entering the theological arena. He sought to follow the counsel of Jude who urged the people of the first century, "to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints." This book will bring back to life the little-known man behind the well-known hymn. Take it up and read it for your good.
"Thomas Isham has skillfully and sympathetically facilitated for his readers an enjoyable and highly informative encounter with one of the greatest figures in the annals of Evangelical Anglicanism. His candid portrait of Augustus Toplady enthralls, and at last does justice to a much maligned and misunderstood minister of the Lord Jesus Christ." - Rev. Roger Salter, Saint Matthews Anglican Church, Vestavia Hills, Alabama
The author begins his Preface with these words:
"For a period of years, the name of Augustus Montague Toplady hovered on the edges of this author's mind, a shadowy and indistinct presence even to one well versed in evangelical and Reformed literature. Toplady: Ah, yes, he was the fellow who wrote 'Rock of Ages,' wasn't he? And yes, he had that curious name - Toplady! Curious; rather humorous, too.
As time passed, the hovering shadow began to take on contours here and there; bits and pieces of the controversies between the Calvinist Toplady and the Arminian John Wesley entered into awareness, and, in time, encouraged further investigation. By-and-by, intimations of Toplady's theological and literary virtuosity became too pronounced to ignore further, and this writer embarked on reading anything and everything concerning the oddly named controversialist and hymn writer."
He then concludes his Preface with these inviting words:
"Again, this author asks, with amazement: What manner of man was this, that even two-hundred and thirty-five years after his death his words remain capable of convincing, inspiring, instructing, infuriating, intimidating, even scandalizing, those who happen upon them. What manner of man, indeed; what manner of clergyman, controversialist, scholar, churchman, preacher, hymn writer and sanctified sinner? To find out, read on. Taste and see that the man is good; a 'true Israelite without guile,' and - in this author's opinion - with enough theological and literary heft to impress the adversary, the uncommitted and the partisan alike."
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
1. Introduction
2. A Singular Life
3. Conversion in Ireland
4. Protestant Mystic
5. Dutiful Pastor
6. Preacher
7. A Not Unsociable Man
8. Anglican Calvinism
9. Philosophical Necessity
10. Wesley's Scourge
11. God in All Things
12. Writer of Hymns
13. True to the End
Afterword
Bibliography
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