4.8 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2020
⏱️ 5 minutes
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As a brand-new pastor just out of college, Augustus Toplady wrote those memorable words, "Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling." On this episode of 5 Minutes in Church History, Dr. Stephen Nichols retells the short life of this London pastor and poet.
Read the transcript: https://www.5minutesinchurchhistory.com/augustus-toplady/
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0:00.0 | Augustus Montague Top Lady. Well that's a name. Let's talk about the life. |
0:07.0 | Top Lady was born in 1740. He died in 1778 at just the age of 37. |
0:15.6 | Let's look at those 37 years. |
0:18.4 | His father died as Augustus was just turning to. |
0:21.8 | His father was an officer in the Royal Marines. He died of yellow fever during a military campaign and so Augustus was basically raised by his mom. After some early education, he entered Trinity College in Dublin. |
0:36.0 | Well, let's just pause for a moment, can we, and think of the library on that campus? |
0:41.6 | The long room, as it's called, is epic. The old library |
0:46.8 | contains millions of books, among them of course, that fabled book of Kells, and this is where top lady is as a student, Trinity College in Dublin. |
0:58.0 | As a first-year college student, he heard a sermon, and he was converted by that sermon by his own testimony he said it |
1:05.6 | was at that sermon that he received his effectual call from God he was initially |
1:12.4 | influenced by Wesley and the growing Armenianism of that day, |
1:16.0 | but then he read Thomas Manton on John 17, and he became a convinced Calvinist. |
1:23.0 | Well, as a third year college student, he published his first book, which was a book of poems. |
1:29.0 | He graduated in 1760. |
1:31.0 | He came under the influence of men like George Whitfield and John Gill. |
1:36.0 | And in 1762, he began his pastoral ministry serving in the Anglican Church. |
1:42.0 | He held a variety of |
1:43.1 | pasturates and he spent the last three years in London preaching. |
1:47.3 | Well curiously, some Wesleyans around London had circulated rumors |
1:52.3 | that top lady had died and not only that he had died but on his deathbed he had renounced Calvinism. |
2:00.0 | Well, Top Lady wasn't quite dead yet, so he appeared in public in London, and he squelched |
2:06.1 | of course the rumor that he was dead, but he was also rather intent on squelching the |
... |
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