The original text by Brevint, 1673, is somewhat different: And let me thirst after them now, as if I stood upon the mountain whence sprung this water and near the cleft of that Rock, the wounds of my Lord, whence gushed his sacred blood. O Rock of Israel, Rock of salvation, Rock struck and cleft for me, let those two streams of blood and water which once gushed out of thy side, bring down pardon and holiness into my soul. In the Wesley printing, the relevant material is in section 2, number 9: The preface to the collection included an excerpt from Daniel Brevint (1616–1695), The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice (Oxford: At the Theatre, 1673). Toplady’s hymn seems to have been directly influenced by the Wesleys’ Hymns on the Lord Supper (1745 printed in 9 eds. Then comes the hymn, “A living and dying prayer for the holiest believer in the world,” in four stanzas of six lines. We can only admire and bless the FATHER, for electing us in Christ, and for laying on Him the iniquities of us all the SON, for taking our nature and our debts upon himself, and for that complete righteousness and sacrifice, whereby he redeemed his mystic Israel from all their sins and the co-equal SPIRIT, for causing us (in conversion) to feel our need of Christ, for inspiring us with faith to embrace him, for visiting us with his sweet consolations by shedding abroad his love in our hearts, for sealing us to the day of Christ, and for making us to walk in the path of his commandments. The last question asks, “What return can believers render, to the glorious and gracious Trinity, for mercy and plenteous redemption like this?” The answer: What follows is a “Spiritual improvement of the foregoing,” from the pen of Augustus Toplady in a sense, a spiritual application dealing with the debt of humanity against the law of God and the redemption found in Christ. The preceding article, formatted in question-and-answer format and signed “J.F.,” dealing with the British national debt, posed the question, “When will the government be able to pay the principal?” A: “When there is more money in England’s treasury alone than there is at present in all Europe.” Q: “And when will that be?” A: “Never.” Here also, the hymn involves some context.
HYMN WORDS ROCK OF AGES FULL
The hymn appeared in its full form in the March issue of The Gospel Magazine, 1776 (Fig.
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