Toplady: Where are you travelling to?

Originally posted here.

The readers of this address, and indeed the whole world at large, may be distributed into two kinds of people: those who are travelling to Canaan, and those who are going the direct contrary way. There are but two roads: the broad, which leadeth to destruction, and the narrow, which opens into life. Travellers all mankind are; and travellers at a very swift rate.

The grand point is, Where are you travelling to?

Are you desirous of knowing whither your footsteps tend, and toward what country thy face is set?

If so, have recourse to the Scriptures of truth, but study them on your knees; that is, in a spirit of prayer, and with the simplicity of a little child.

Suppose, for instance, that we look at John 16:8, where Christ thus describes the office of the Holy Ghost, and the effects which His converting influences have on the human mind: “When ‘He is come He shall convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment”; that is, He shall, first, feelingly demonstrate to them their absolute sinnership, and their total helplessness, working in them a deep sense and real hatred of self and sin; and He shall, secondly, lead them to rest on Christ, and on His righteousness alone, for justification.

Now, has God the Spirit done these things for you?

Has He wrought, or begun to work these convictions in your soul?

If He has not, nor so much as kindled a growing desire after Christ and His salvation in your breast, I dare not give you the right hand of fellowship. I dare not salute you as one of my fellow-travellers to the kingdom of God.

No, you are yet in Egypt, and you will quickly be in hell, except the Holy Ghost take you in hand, and give you a new heart, and lead you to Christ.

But if you have ground to hope that this work of grace is experienced by you in some degree; if, on looking at your soul in the gospel-glass, you can discern the traces of faith, love, repentance and sanctification there, you are of the number of those who have been enabled, through grace, to set forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan you shall come.

Two things are particularly needful for you to observe:

1. That the world will endeavour to turn your feet out of the narrow way. If the wicked are so muzzled by Providence that they cannot bite, they will snarl at least. If they cannot do you real injury, they will probably pelt you with scandal, and sneer at you for being, in their opinion, righteous over-much. But let not this discourage you ~ but imitate the blind man in the gospel, who the more he was exhorted by the multitude to hold his peace, cried out so much the more, “Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.”

2. Beware of sin. May you be enabled to shun the remotest appearance of evil. Though a truly converted, person cannot fall, so as to turn back finally and perish everlastingly; yet, if he is not kept watching unto prayer, he may lose his peace and joy in believing, and that inward testimony of the Holy Spirit, that felt fellowship with God, and that sweet tranquillity of conscience, without which living scarcely deserves the name of life. It is a sad thing when a saint is overturned on the road. Though he cannot lose his soul, yet a fall may break the neck of his comforts, and make him go halting to his journey’s end. “The devil,” as one justly remarks, “is never better pleased than when he can roll a child of God in the dirt.” Beg of the Lord, therefore, to hold up your goings in His paths, that your footsteps slip not.

Yet, if you should fall, be humbled, but do not despair. May you be led to pray afresh to God, who is able to raise you up, and to set you on your feet again, and helped to look to the blood of the covenant, and say to the Lord from the depth of your heart,

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee,
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.”

It has been justly observed that “it is one thing to fall into the mire, and another thing to lie in it.” When the Lord has graciously restored you, you will look upon sin as the bitterest calamity that can befall you, and consider those who would entice you to it as the very worst enemies you have.

Soon shall we arrive where not only sin, but every temptation to it and every propensity toward it will cease for ever. As a good man once said on his deathbed, “Hold out, faith and patience! Yet a little while, and I shall need you no longer.”

When faith and patience have done and suffered their appointed work, the disciples of Christ shall ascend from the wilderness to paradise. Then will they be able to say, “Called by the Lord’s effectual grace, we went forth into the land of Canaan; and, clothed with His righteousness and preserved by His power, into the land of Canaan we are come.” Even so, Amen.

Taken from an address by Augustus Montague Toplady on Genesis 12:5.

Toplady’s Dying Testimony

Written by Sylvester Hassell

Augustus M. Toplady, of England (born Nov. 4, 1740, and died Aug. 11, 1778), was an Episcopalian min­ister and hymn-writer, and one of the strongest predes­tinarians that ever lived. He was editor of The Gospel Magazine, and the author of many hymns, of which the chief was “Rock of Ages,” ‘which I have given, as ex­pressive of the truest and deepest religious feeling, on page 660 of my Church History, at the close of my gen­eral history of the church, and which was the favorite of Mr. W. E. Gladstone, the greatest English statesmen of the 19th century, and which was translated by Mr. Gladstone into Latin and was sung at his burial in West­minster Abbey.

Mr. Toplady had everything before him to make life desirable, yet when death drew near, his soul exulted in gladness. He said:—“It is my dying avowal that these great and glorious truths which the Lord in rich mercy has given me to believe and enabled me to preach are now brought into practical and heartfelt experience. They are the very joy and support of my soul. The con­solations flowing from them carry me far above the things of time and sense. So far as I know my own heart, I have no desire but to be entirely passive.” Fre­quently he called himself a dying man, and yet the hap­piest man in the world, adding, “Sickness is no affliction, pain no curse, death itself no dissolution; and yet how this soul of mine longs to be gone; like a bird impris­oned in its cage, it longs to take its flight. Had I wings like a dove, then would I fly away to the bosom of God, and be at rest forever.” Within an hour before he ex­pired he seemed to awake from a gentle slumber, and he exclaimed, “O, what delights! Who can fathom the joys of the third heaven? What a bright sunshine has been spread around me! I have not words to express it. I know it can not be long now till my Saviour will come for me, for surely no mortal can live (bursting, as he said it, into a flood of tears) after glories that God has manifested to my soul. All is light, light, light——the brightness of His own glory. O, come, Lord Jesus, come; come quickly.” Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep, to be awakened with others of like precious faith on that great day “when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, to be glorified with his saints and admired in all them that believe,” (2 Thess. i 7-10).

S. H.

The “god” of Arminianism

by Augustus Montague

I dare say, that, in such an auditory as this, a number of Arminians are present. I fear that all our public assemblies have too many of them. Perhaps, however, even these people, idolaters as they are, may be apt to blame, and, indeed, with justice, the absurdity of those who worship idols of silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. But let me ask: If it be so very absurd, to worship the work of other men’s hands what must it be, to worship the works of our own hands? Perhaps, you may say, “God forbid that I should do so.”. Nevertheless, let me tell you, that trust, confidence, reliance, and dependence, for salvation, are all acts and very solemn ones too, of divine worship: and upon whatsoever you depend, whether in whole or in part, for your acceptance with God, and for your justification in his sight, whatsoever, you rely upon, and trust in, for the attainment of grace or glory; if it be any thing short of God in Christ, you are an idolater for all intents and purposes.

Very different is the idea which Scripture gives us, of the ever-blessed God, from that of those false gods worshipped by the heathens; and from that degrading representation of the true God, which Arminianism would palm upon mankind. Our God (says this Psalm, verse the third) is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he pleased. This is not the Arminian idea of God: for our free-willers and our chance-mongers tell us, that God does not do whatsoever he pleases; that there are a great number of things, which God wishes to do, and rags and strives to do, and yet cannot bring to pass . . . Is their god the Bible God? Certainly not. Their god “submits” to difficulties which he “cannot help” himself out of, and endeavors to make himself “easy” under millions and millions of inextricable embarrassments, uncomfortable disappointments, and mortifying defeats. . . .This said scheme ascends, on the ladder of blasphemy, to the mountain top of atheism; and then hurls itself from that precipice, into the gulf of blind, adamantine necessity, in order to prove mankind free agents!

. . .One great contest, between the religion of Arminianism, and the religion of Christ, is, who shall stand entitled to the praise and glory of a sinner’s salvation? Conversion decides this point at once; for I think that, without any imputation of uncharitableness, I may venture to say, that every truly awakened person, at least when he is under the shine of God’s countenance upon his soul, will fall down upon his knees, with this hymn of praise ascending from his heart, ‘Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me, but to thy name, give the glory’: I am saved not for my righteousness, but for thy mercy and thy truth’s sake.

 

John 17:9

Augustus Toplady, who penned “Rock of Ages”, wrote that it “pleased God to deliver me from the Arminian snare” by reading Zanchius’s “Confessions of the Christian Religion” and sermons on John 17 by Thomas Manton.  A quote from one of Manton’s sermons:

“I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me;for they are thine.” John 17:9

The substance of that prayer is for the elect not yet converted, for Christ prayeth for “all that shall believe through their word,” (v. 20). And then, “that they may be all one,” &c., “that the world may believe that thou hast sent me;” so that the unregenerate elect are not intended. Well, but then doth Christ pray for the reprobate world, that they may believe? I answer—No; faith or believing is there taken for a more full conviction, that they may be convinced and rendered more inexcusable. It is not taken in a strict sense, for a saving comprehension and receiving of Christ, but for a conviction and acknowledgment. Divisions in the church usually breed atheism in the world; all is false when so many ways and differences. So think they Christ is an impostor, the word a fable. Now this kind of conviction is not only termed believing in scripture, but explained, “That the world may know that thou hast sent me,” (v. 23). Nay, let us grant that faith is taken in the highest and strictest sense; yet there is a difference between praying for such a thing as may be a likely means of working faith, and praying that they may believe. Christ only prayeth “that his people may be one,” that the world may not plead prejudice; at most, he doth but obliquely reflect upon the world in that prayer, that they may have means of conviction, but not grace. Christ denieth that the world either hath, or ever shall have, the grace of faith: “O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee; but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me,” (v. 25). And the special reason why the elect have known, though the world have not known, is rendered, “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it,” (v. 26); by which is meant the special manifestation of his grace given to believers of all ages, which was given to the disciples of that present age, and will be given to all future believers. A serious consideration of the context will refute all these sophisms. Thus I have taken off the objections.

It is a part of his priestly office, of which there were two acts—oblation and intercession. Obla­tion was made once on the altar of the cross, and intercession is the continuation of his sacrifice, or the presenting it in heaven. It must be explained by analogy to the priests of the law. The sacrifice was slain without the camp, and then the priests were to enter with the blood within the veil, into the holy of holies, with sweet incense, and so to cause a cloud to arise over the mercy-seat. “But Christ being come, an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands; that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us,” (Heb. 9:11,12). Jesus Christ having offered up himself upon the cross, where he was both priest and sacrifice, he is gone within the veil, “Not into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the presence of God for us,” (Heb. 9:24). It is not a vocal, but a real intercession. Christ is gone into heaven, and there presents his person, both in our nature and his own, together with his merits, lift­ing up desires which are as a cloud of incense before the mercy-seat, for our comfort and salvation: “And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer, and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne,” (Rev. 8:3). The high priest entered not for himself, but for the people, having the names of the twelve tribes upon his breast and shoulders; so Christ is entered on the behalf of us all, bearing the particular memorial of every saint graven upon his heart The high priest staid within the sanctuary for a short time, and so came out to bless the people; Christ entered within the veil at his ascension, and we must wait till his coming out to bless us, which will be at the day of judgment. All this while he hath his residence in heaven, and then he will open to us and give us entrance. So that Christ’s intercession is “A constant representation of his merit for the pardon of our sins, and for our acceptance; together with strong desires conceived in the human nature for the good of the creature, for all their exigencies and employments! that so his whole purchase may be applied to us, and we may receive grace to help in time of need.” It is a representing of his own merit, the worthiness of his person. As God-man, he is the Son of God, yet the creature’s advocate; and the merit of his obedience and passion: “I have glorified thee upon the earth;” as one that was to plead for his life showed cubitum sine manu, his hand lost in the service of the state. All this is to the Father, who being appeased, all the rest of the persons are appeased; for they are one, and agree in one. He pleads with God for the application of good things procured by his oblation, especially in deep exigencies and conflicts. Christ hath knowledge at other times, but then he hath a fellow-feeling: “We have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin,” (Heb. 4:15). His heart is entendered by his own experience.