Augustus Toplady Quotes

Grace finds us beggars but leaves us debtors.

That opinion that personal holiness is unnecessary to final glorification is in direct opposition to every dictate of reason; to every declaration of Scripture.

Whom should we love, if not Him who loved us, and gave himself for us?

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.

The greatest judgment which God himself can, in the present life, inflict upon a man is to leave him in the hand of his own boasted 'free'-will.

I enjoy heaven already in my soul. My prayers are all converted into praises.

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee.

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.

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

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.

To a true believer, death is but going to church: from the church below to the church above.

The church of the elect, which is partly militant on earth, and partly triumphant in heaven, resembles a city built on both sides of a river. There is but the stream of death between grace and glory. Death, to God's people, is but a ferry-boat.

Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling

Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfill thy Law's demands:
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for Sin could not atone:
Thou must save, and Thou alone!

I infer that God's decrees, and the necessity of event flowing thence, neither destroy the true free-agency of men, nor render the commission of sin a jot less heinous. They neither force the human will, nor extenuate the evil of human actions. Predestination, foreknowledge, and providence, only secure the event, and render it certainly future, in a way and manner (incomprehensibly indeed by us; but) perfectly consistent with the nature of second causes.

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.

Since much wealth too often proves a snare and an incumbrance in the Christian's race, let him lighten the weight by 'dispersing abroad and giving to the poor'; whereby he will both soften the pilgrimage of his fellow travelers, and speed his own way the faster.