Faith Triumphing

Representative Text

1 A debtor to mercy alone,
of covenant mercy I sing;
nor fear, with Your righteousness on,
my person and off'ring to bring.
The terrors of law and of God
with me can have nothing to do;
my Savior's obedience and blood
hide all my transgressions from view.

2 The work which His goodness began,
the arm of His strength will complete;
His promise is yea and amen,
and never was forfeited yet.
Things future, nor things that are now,
nor all things below or above,
can make Him His purpose forgo,
or sever my soul from His love.

3 My name from the palms of His hands
eternity will not erase;
impressed on His heart it remains,
in marks of indelible grace.
Yes, I to the end shall endure,
as sure as the earnest is giv'n;
more happy, but not more secure,
the glorified spirits in heav'n.

Source: Psalms and Hymns to the Living God #201

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Author: Augustus Toplady

Toplady, Augustus Montague, the author of "Rock of Ages," was born at Farnham, Surrey, November 4, 1740. His father was an officer in the British army. His mother was a woman of remarkable piety. He prepared for the university at Westminster School, and subsequently was graduated at Trinity College, Dublin. While on a visit in Ireland in his sixteenth year he was awakened and converted at a service held in a barn in Codymain. The text was Ephesians ii. 13: "But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." The preacher was an illiterate but warm-hearted layman named Morris. Concerning this experience Toplady wrote: "Strange that I, who had so long sat under the means of grace in England, should b… Go to person page >

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First Line:	A debtor to mercy alone
Title:	Faith Triumphing
Author:	Augustus Toplady
Meter:	8.8.8.8 D
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

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A debtor to mercy alone. A. M. Toplady. [Assurance of Faith.] Contributed to the Gospel Magazine, May, 1771, in 3 stanzas of 8 lines, and included in Toplady's Psalms & Hymns, 1776, No. 313, with the alteration, stanza i., line 4, of "offering" to "offerings." In 1860 the 1771 text was included in Sedgwick's reprint of Toplady's Hymns, &c, p. 140. In the older collections it was in most extensive use, both in the Church of England and with many of the Nonconformist bodies, but it is now very generally omitted from modern collections in Great Britain, although in America it still holds a prominent position.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Notes

A debtor to mercy alone. A. M. Toplady. [Assurance of Faith.] Contributed to the Gospel Magazine, May, 1771, in 3 stanzas of 8 lines, and included in Toplady's Psalms & Hymns, 1776, No. 313, with the alteration, stanza i., line 4, of "offering" to "offerings." In 1860 the 1771 text was included in Sedgwick's reprint of Toplady's Hymns, &c, p. 140. In the older collections it was in most extensive use, both in the Church of England and with many of the Nonconformist bodies, but it is now very generally omitted from modern collections in Great Britain, although in America it still holds a prominent position.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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Tune

TREWEN

CONTRAST (German)

The tune most commonly known as CONTRAST is a German folk tune. In American shape-note tradition the tune is known as GREEN FIELDS or GREENFIELDS. J. S. Bach quoted it in his "Peasant Cantata," but he did not compose it. It has also been misattributed to Maria DeFleury and to Lewis Edson. Edson wrot…

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LLANGRISTIOLUS

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