FAITH AND VISION
148. Rock of Ages, cleft for me
Augustus M. Toplady, 1740-78
Few hymns are more generally familiar or more treasured in the affections of all ranks of people than this. It appeared first in the Gospel Magazine, edited by Toplady, March, 1776, at the end of an article entitled, “A remarkable calculation Introduced here for the sake of the Spiritual Improvements subjoined. Questions and answers relating to the National Debt.” The article points out that the national debt is so large that the government will never be able to pay it off. The author then proceeds to calculate the number of sins each human being commits. Figuring the rate to be one per second, he arrives at this:
Our dreadful account stands as follows: At ten years old each of us is chargeable with 315 millions and 360,000 sins. At twenty, with 630 millions and 720,000. At thirty with 946 millions and 80,000.... At eighty, with 2,522 millions and 880,000.
The conclusion is that the debt can only be paid by the blood of Christ. The hymn follows his “calculation,” under the heading, “A living and dying Prayer for the Holiest Believer in the World.”
For 45 years after its publication, the hymn had little acceptance in England. Its merits then became recognized, and it became very popular. In the last century and a quarter it has had world-wide use, in a form altered somewhat from the original. The hymn has been criticized for its mixed metaphors (“cleft rock,” “riven side,” “to thy cross I cling,” “to the fountain fly”), for its false rhymes, and its over-emphasis upon sin obsession; but it has certain heart-piercing qualities which override all its faults. Like other hymns of the first rank (e.g., “Jesus Lover of my soul,” “Lead kindly light,” and “Nearer my God to Thee”) it voices the universal need of divine help. Professor Saintsbury, a literary critic, says of this hymn: “Every word, every syllable, in this really great poem has its place and meaning.”
The central imagery of the hymn is found in the following Scripture passages: Ex. 33:22: “While my glory passeth by, I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by”; Isa. 26:4: “Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is the rock of ages” (margin); I Cor. 10:4: “and that Rock was Christ.”
A picturesque story, which originated about 1850, had it that Toplady composed the hymn while he was sheltering from a thunder storm in a great cleft of a limestone rock, some twelve years before the publication of the hymn. The story is without foundation. Toplady was fascinated by the thought of Christ as a rock and in a sermon on Isa. 42:11: “Let the inhabitants of the rock sing,” he said: “Chiefly may they sing who inhabit Christ the spiritual Rock of Ages. He is a Rock in three ways: as a Foundation to support, a Shelter to screen, and a Fortress to protect.”
The hymn has had a wide use among German speaking people in a translation made by Ernst Gebhardt, 1832-99.