Augustus Toplady's quotes

To the humble, self-emptied, self-renouncing sinner, even the sword of Divine Justice is a curtana, a sword of mercy, a sword without a point.

Every religion except one puts upon you doing something in order to recommend yourself to God. It is only the religion of Christ (which runs counter to all the rest by affirming that we are saved and called with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to the Father's own purpose and grace) which was not sold out to us on certain conditions to be fulfilled by ourselves, but was given us in Christ before the world began. It was long ago remarked by a good man that, 'It is the business of all false religion to patch up a righteousness in which the sinner is to stand before God. But it is the business of the glorious gospel to bring near to us, by the hand of the Holy Spirit, a righteousness ready wrought, a robe of perfection ready made, wherein God's people, to all the purposes of justification and happiness, stand perfect and without fault before the throne.'

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to your Cross I cling;
Naked, come to you for dress;
Helpless, look to you for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

There is no difference between the brightest archangel in glory and the blackest apostate spirit in hell, but what free-grace has made.

We bless thee for the glorious fruits
Thine incarnation gives.
The righteousness which grace imputes,
And faith alone receives.
As all, when Adam sinned alone,
In his transgression died,
So by the righteousness of one
Are sinners justified.

A man's free-will cannot cure him even of the tooth ache, or of a sore finger; and yet he madly thinks it is in its power to cure his soul.

Good works, like the golden ear-rings of the Israelites, are valuable in themselves; but if once exalted into a golden calf, to be worshipped and relied upon, are damningly pernicious.

A true believer lives upon free grace as his necessary food. And, indeed, he who has really tasted the sweetness of grace, can live upon nothing else.

Grace finds us beggars, and always leaves us debtors.