Toplady's first salvo into the world of religious controversy came in 1769 when he wrote a book in response to a situation at the University of Oxford. Six students had been expelled from St Edmund Hall because of their Calvinist views, which Thomas Nowell criticised as inconsistent with the views of the Church of England. Toplady then criticised Nowell's position in his book "The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Arminianism", which argued that Calvinism, not Arminianism, was the position historically held by the Church of England.