Glory of the Two Crowned Heads

David Culy was a native of Guyhirn, a small village near the town of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire. He was converted, according to his own account, {in the year 1687,} under the ministry of Francis Holcroft {essentially the harbinger of Nonconformity in Cambridgeshire, and dubbed ‘the apostle of Cambridgeshire’} whose preaching was blessed “to my conversion, though very dark at the first.” About a year after his conversion to Christ, the “Lord sent me out to preach the Gospel of his Son, whose voice I obeyed.” Thus his ministry {though somewhat unofficially} began at his own sister’s house at Guyhirn, {being a widow,} “to whom the Lord blessed my ministry, along with many others of my relations.” After gathering a small number of such, according to Divine Appointment, “as should be saved,” {Acts 2:47,} it was his desire that they should be joined to some assembly of like-minded brethren, and thus he went up to Cambridge, “thinking to join myself to a church there in being.” After he “spoke his experience,” and the church {probably the Green Street Meeting, one of Holcroft’s Congregations, or the Cambridge ‘Great Meeting’ at Hog Hill, formed in 1687, and which was to become the church over which Joseph Hussey took oversight in 1691,} there validating his testimony of the grace of God, with an open hand of fellowship in the Gospel of Christ; the Lord, as it would so be determined, ordered his path elsewhere, for his heart was “drawn away from that church.” At that time, knowing no other church, but a “Baptist Church, and that I could not join,” {probably, the so-called Particular Baptist Church at Wisbech, pastored by William Rix, who was thought to have preached on occasion amongst the General Baptists in that region, thus unveiling his compromised position,} and being brought under great turmoil of mind on this account, the Lord brought his attention to his unalterable Truth as found in Job, “but he is in one mind, and who can turn him; and what his soul desireth, even that he doeth,” {23:13,} revitalizing his assurance in those grand truths of God’s sovereignty, and the fact that the Lord was working all things in accordance with his purpose and grace. “A very short time after it pleased the Lord to send Mr. Richard Davis, {pastor of the Independent Church at Rothwell, and a man of remarkable energy and zeal for the cause of the Gospel; establishing several congregations, amongst them the Church at Guyhirn, where Culy was to minister,} and some others of the same, to visit us, to whom the Lord knit my heart immediately. So myself, and a few others, {Culy and five others from the region were received into membership in September of 1691,} went up to Rothwell the next church meeting, and were taken into fellowship.” He continues, “not long after, the church of Christ at Rothwell had meetings at Guyhirn where we lived, and many were added to the church. In some time the church chose me as an Elder {this was in 1692} to help rule {a ruling Elder, over the newly gathered congregation} in that capacity; and soon after the Lord cast me by his providence to preach about Thetford where some of the members of the same church lay. So those at Guyhirn and those at Thetford consulted together and agreed to break of from the church at Rothwell to ‘inchurch’ together by themselves; and so we wrote to the church for our demission, to which the church willingly granted, {this was in July of 1693,} and sent their pastor and others, to see us sit down together in Gospel Order demanding of us whether we were all seated together in the same faith and order which we covenanted with them. We all answered in the same, and so gave up ourselves to the Lord and to one another in a covenant witnessing of it, by the lifting up of our hands.” Like his predecessor before him, Culy was fervently engaged in proclaiming the precious truths of an accomplished Salvation in Christ, and was instrumental in establishing a number of churches in the area; and so widespread was his influence, that those that were named amongst his ‘followers’ are said to have styled him the ‘Bishop of Guyhirn.’ It is said that a vast majority of the inhabitants of Guyhirn became his ‘disciples,’ as did many persons at Whittlesea, Wisbech, St. Mary’s, Outwell, and Upwell, until at length his flock, {from so small beginnings,} was increased to seven or eight hundred. Those in the area even called them ‘Culimites,’ a term of derision, no doubt. Towards the conclusion of his earthly pilgrimage, Culy moved to Billinghay to live out his remaining years. Culy died about the year 1725; and tradition says that he was buried in an obscure corner of the village graveyard. Shortly after his death, there appeared a book entitled, “The Works of Mr. David Culy, in Three Parts. I. The Glory of the Two Crowned Heads; Adam and Christ, Unveiled or the Mystery of the New Testament opened. II. Letters and Answers to and from several Ministers of Divers Persuasions, on various subjects. III. Above forty Hymns composed. The first part of the book {Glory of the Two Crowned Heads} was reprinted in 1800, by Samuel Reece, of Plymouth Dock, to which were added his own notes, critical and explanatory; and also a letter by Martin Luther on the topic of Predestination.

An Excerpt: Did God, and that from all eternity, design that his people should be redeemed by the death of Christ? While you retain, or profess to retain, any veneration for the Bible, you cannot answer in the negative. Did God design to redeem them in any other state but as fallen creatures? There are but two states in which they possibly can be considered, either innocent or guilty; as innocent they could not be redeemed, for the innocent needs no ransom; then they must be considered as guilty; for Christ was made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law; under the curse of the law, and their guilt reduced them to that state. Has God ever decreed any end, without implying in the decree, the means that will accomplish that end? If he has, he has designed to obtain an end, without means to effect it. To believe this, is to suppose, that God decrees not only without any certainty of obtaining the end, but also without a possibility of attaining it; for there can be no possible effect produced without a corresponding cause. Let those who cavil at the truths of God, seal their tongues in silence, until they see that all the ways of God are mysteriously awful, yet mercifully consistent. The idea of an event, {which involves such astonishing consequences,} taking place without the consent, {nay, if God gave them a law in order to prevent it,} contrary to the will, against the inclination, and in opposition to the designs of the Supreme Governor of the world is so derogatory to God, so dishonourable to his Character, and so contrary to the written Word, that I cannot admit it; for, upon its very surface I read a vile impeachment of all those attributes that endear his Government and that constitute God the Object of my worship. When I view the circumstances that existed before, and that succeeded the event, I am additionally confirmed in my opinion, respecting its appointment; and I will defy the world to prove, with all its subtilized sophistry, any difference between the fore-knowledge of God and his Divine decrees. The circumstances I refer to are inseparably connected with the Eternal Settlements of the Covenant of Grace. Why then will any impute that to God, which would render a polluted wretch hateful and detestable to wretched men? Why should God’s government be tarnished by such a foul and unfounded obloquy? When God said that, “all was very good,” he had no reference whatever to any supposed stability in the things created to abide in that state. God knew the contrary, and his having given all things unto Christ, before their existence, is a proof of his appointment. Had God designed the streams of happiness to flow from the pure fountain of nature’s excellency, could Satan contaminate the fountain that God had made pure, or dam up the streams that he commanded to flow, and gladden the world if he could, against the will of the Lord, and in opposition to his Divine Appointment, our miserable minds are called upon to contemplate a reigning Devil, a ruined world, a vanquished and a disappointed God. The works of the Lord were all impeccably good, internally so, for all were perfect in their kind. They were good in their tendencies to produce those effects that accelerated the accomplishment of the Divine Plan. The decrees of God, and the motives of human actions, are essentially different; yet, under the inspection of Divine wisdom and under the control of Divine power, they are necessary parts of that indivisible whole that accomplishes the decreed end. I know the squeamishness of moderate divines, and of moderate professors, {though the idea of moderate Christians and moderate divines has something in it very problematical,} when speaking, or more properly when thinking of speaking of the decrees of God, instead of adhering to the plain testimony of Scripture, instead of feeding the doubtful mind with established truth, they substitute a palaver of their own, which is only intelligible to the Egyptians. None can effect a cure, but him who is constituted our Covenant Head, and he effects the cure, not by laying an additional weight upon the palsied shoulders of agonized humanity, but by giving the soul, to see that according to the design and eternal purposes of Jehovah, that there is a divine oneness between Christ and his people; and that all preceding dispensations were only preparatory means in the hands of God, to the introduction of this. Christ was constituted from eternity the Head of his church, which is his body; and if so, his church must of necessity, had a virtual existence in Him, otherwise it is impossible for us to conceive of a perfect Head, irrespective of the body over which he presides; and as the blessed Redeemer was constituted not only a governing, but a suffering Head, the number of members which composed his body were ascertained, and the degree of sufferings he was to endure specified. As a head of a public body, “Adam was a figure of him that was to come.” We existing in the loins of Adam, in consequence of that existence, are involved, and that justly, in the guilt of that act; and, as Adam never existed without bearing this relation to all the generations that sprang from him, so neither was Christ considered as the anointed of the Father, irrespective of his church. What God discovers to us in time, was eternally effected in his Divine purposes; and the purpose of God gives existence to all persons and things.