“Rock of Ages, cleft for me”: the hymn Augustus Toplady published in 1776, and the storm legend behind it

In a gorge in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, a split in a limestone cliff carries a plaque. It claims that Augustus Toplady sheltered there from a storm and was inspired to write “Rock of Ages”. Historians are not sure the story is true. The hymn is real, and it has lasted almost 250 years.

Augustus Montague Toplady was born in 1740 in Farnham, Surrey. He was converted as a teenager in Ireland after hearing a lay preacher in a barn, and he became a Church of England clergyman. He was a strong Calvinist and argued fiercely in print with John Wesley over doctrine.

The hymn

“Rock of Ages” first appeared in The Gospel Magazine, which Toplady edited, in 1776. The opening lines speak of Christ as a rock split open to shelter the sinner: “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee.”

The image draws on the Bible. In Exodus 33, God places Moses in “a clift of the rock” as His glory passes by. In Exodus 17, water flows from a rock struck by Moses, and Paul later writes that “that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4).

Nothing in my hand

The most famous lines express total dependence on grace: “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.” Toplady’s theology held that salvation comes from God alone, not from human effort. The hymn puts that doctrine in words anyone can sing.

The legend

The story of the storm in Burrington Combe became popular in the nineteenth century. There is no firm evidence for it, and Toplady himself never mentioned it. Still, the cleft rock is a tourist attraction, and the legend has helped keep the hymn in memory.

Toplady’s short life

Toplady suffered from tuberculosis and died in London in 1778, aged 37, two years after the hymn was published.

Its reach

“Rock of Ages” became one of the best-known hymns in the English-speaking world. It was sung at the funeral of William Gladstone, who translated it into Latin, and it has been translated into many other languages. In Ghana and Nigeria, it is sung at funerals and in Methodist, Anglican and Presbyterian services.

Singing it today

The hymn is usually sung to the tune Toplady, composed by Thomas Hastings in 1830, particularly in the United States. In Britain, other tunes are also used.

The last verse looks toward death: “While I draw this fleeting breath, when mine eyes shall close in death.” Toplady was dead within two years of writing it, still clinging to the rock he had described.