The Muggletonians, named after Lodowicke Muggleton, were a small Protestant Christian movement which began in 1651 when two London tailors announced they were the last prophets foretold in the biblical Book of Revelation. The group grew out of the Ranters and in opposition to the Quakers. Muggletonian beliefs include a hostility to philosophical reason, a scriptural understanding of how the universe works and a belief that God appeared directly on Earth as Jesus Christ. A consequential belief is that God takes no notice of everyday events on Earth and will not generally intervene until it is meant to bring the world to an end.
Muggletonians avoided all forms of worship or preaching, and met only for discussion and socializing. The movement was egalitarian, apolitical and pacifist, and resolutely avoided evangelism. Members attained a degree of public notoriety by cursing those who reviled their faith. This practice ceased in the mid-nineteenth century. One of the last to be cursed was the novelist Sir Walter Scott.
The faith attracted public attention in 1979 when Philip Noakes left the entire Muggletonian archive of correspondence, general papers and publications to the British Library.
Origins
The movement was born on 3 February 1651 (old style) when a London tailor, John Reeve, claimed to receive a commission from God "to the hearing of the ear as a man speaks to a friend." Reeve was told four things: "I have given thee understanding of my mind in the Scriptures above all men in the world." "Look into thy own body, there thou shalt see the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom of Hell." "I have chosen thee a last messenger for a great work, unto this bloody unbelieving world. And I have given thee Lodowick Muggleton to be thy mouth." "I have put the two-edged sword of my spirit into thy mouth, that whoever I pronounce blessed, through thy mouth, is blessed to eternity; and whoever I pronounce cursed through thy mouth is cursed to eternity." Reeve believed that he and his cousin, Lodowicke Muggleton, were the two witnesses spoken of in the third verse of the eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelation. After Reeve's death, Muggleton had a brief struggle for control of the group with Laurence Clarkson, a former Ranter, and subsequently with those followers of John Reeve who did not accept Muggleton's authority.
The Muggletonians emphasized the Millennium and the Second Coming of Christ, and believed, among other things, that the soul is mortal; that Jesus is God (and not a member of a Trinity); that when Jesus died there was no God in Heaven, and Moses and Elijah looked after Heaven until Jesus' resurrection; that Heaven is six miles above Earth; that God is between five and six feet tall; and that any external religious ceremony is not necessary. Some scholars think that Muggletonian doctrine may have influenced the work of the artist and poet William Blake.
Recent attempts have been made to locate the movement within earlier intellectual traditions, most notably the Eternal Gospel of Joachim of Fiore. However, Dr Marjorie Reeves has examined the evidence and concludes "the case for a recognisable Joachimist influence among seventeenth-century English prophets falls to the ground." There had been at least one earlier appearance of a claim about the Two Last Witnesses, which John Reeve knew about.
Beliefs The six principles of Muggletonianism were perhaps best set out by George Williamson, a Roman Catholic who visited the London Muggletonians in 1913: There is no God but the glorified Man Christ Jesus. There is no Devil but the unclean Reason of men. Heaven is an infinite abode of light above and beyond the stars. The place of Hell will be this Earth when sun, moon and stars are extinguished. Angels are the only beings of Pure Reason. The Soul dies with the body and will be raised with it.
These principles derive from Lodowicke Muggleton, who would have added one other matter as being of equal importance, namely, that God takes no immediate notice of doings in this world. If people sin, it is against their own consciences and not because God "catches them at it".
John Reeve's formulation also included pacifism and the doctrine of the two seeds (see below).
According to Rev Dr Alexander Gordon of Belfast, "The system of belief is a singular union of opinions which seem diametrically opposed. It is rationalistic on one side, credulous on another."
Muggletonianism was profoundly materialist. Matter pre-existed even the creation of our universe; nothing can be created from nothing. God, identified as the Holy One of Israel, is a being with a glorified body, in appearance much like a man. There can never be a spirit without a body. A purely spiritual deity, lacking any locus, would be an absurdity (so Muggletonians vehemently told the Quakers) incapable of action in a material world. The man Christ Jesus was not sent from God but was the very God appearing on this earth. Speculation about a divine nature and a human nature, or about the Trinity, is not in error so much as unnecessary. At worst, John Reeve said, it encourages people to ascribe to the deity a whole ragbag of inconsistent human attributes expressed as superlatives. Or, as Thomas Tomkinson drily remarked, it tends to give you a father of justice just when you most wanted a son of mercy.
The Devil, on the other hand, should not be likened to a character from a Ben Jonson play. When the one reprobate angel was tossed from heaven to earth, he perished, but not before impregnating Eve so that Cain was born to perpetuate his frustrated rage upon this earth. The natural process of generation ensured that, even by the time of Noah, all humans had within themselves something from Seth and something from Cain. Muggletonians call this the doctrine of the two seeds: the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. The former promoted faith within us, the latter promoted reasoning and desire. This is the conflict within every person. This is a predestinarian belief but, because there are two seeds and not one, humanity is not rendered abject and the innocence of Adam and Eve still has a chance of coming to the top within modern humankind.
Reason stems from desire and lack. Reason is not seen as a sublime mental process but as a rather shoddy trick humans use to try to get what they misguidedly imagine they want. Angels are creatures of Pure Reason because their only desire is for God so that their lack will be totally satisfied over and over again. The reprobate angel was not at fault. God deliberately chose to deprive this angel of satisfaction so that, by his fall, the other angels would become aware that their perfection came from God and not from their own natures.
Professor William M. Lamont sees 17th-century Muggletonianism as an early form of liberation theology. Because there are no spirits without bodies, there can be no ghosts, no witches, no grounds for fear and superstition and no all-seeing eye of God. Once persons are contented in their faith, they are free to speculate as they please on all other matters. God will take no notice. And Muggletonian meetings did just that.
The Muggletonian canon is generally taken to comprise: The books of the Christian Old & New Testaments except those traditionally ascribed to Solomon, whose wisdom is seen as worldly rather than inspired. Crucially, this deletes Ecclesiastes. Muggleton expressed doubts about the Book of Job but it is too much of a favourite to remove. Thomas Tomkinson advances a neat compromise, "though the authority of the book is questioned by some, yet all admit it to be a true history." The writings of the prophets of the Third Commission: A Transcendent Spiritual Treatise (1st Ed. 1652), A Divine Looking-Glass (1st ed, 1656) and other works The Book of Enoch (Ethiopic Enoch or 1 Enoch). Muggletonians did not produce their own edition but did reprint Signification of the proper names occurring in the Book of Enoch from the Hebrew & Chaldee Rev D. A. De Sola. Finsbury: Isaac Frost (1852). Similarly, The Book of the Secrets of Enoch (Slavonic Enoch or 2 Enoch) which was introduced into English by Robert Henry Charles in 1896 would qualify. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, from an English version of Robert Grosseteste's 13th-century Latin translation, printed from the 1693 edition with its introduction plus a modern glossary. Whitechapel: Joseph Frost Snr (1837). However, Muggletonians had a distaste for scriptural literalism. One of the purposes of the third commission was to make clear what was previously held obscure in scripture. Their approach to scripture incorporated quite explicit interpretation and separated texts into positive and privative.
Muggletonian meetings Professor Lamont styles the Muggletonians "disorganized religion". They held no annual conferences, never organised a single public meeting, seem to have escaped every official register or census of religion, never incorporated, never instituted a friendly society, never appointed a leader, spokesperson, editorial board, chairperson for meetings or a single committee. Their sole foray into bureaucracy was to appoint trustees for their investment, the income from which paid the rent on the London Reading Room between 1869 and 1918. Philip Noakes may not have been the last Muggletonian, but he was certainly the last trustee.
Muggletonian meetings were simple comings-together of individuals who appeared to feel that discussion with like-minded believers helped clarify their own thoughts. "Nothing in the Muggletonian history becomes it more than its fidelity to open debate (though sometimes rancorous)."
Records and correspondence show that meetings took place from the 1650s to 1940 in London and for almost as long in Derbyshire. Regular meetings occurred at other places at other times. Bristol, Cork, Faversham and Nottingham are among those known, and there were many others, especially in East Anglia and Kent.
In both London and Derbyshire, two types of meetings were held. There were regular discussion meetings and there were holiday meetings of a more celebratory nature held in mid-February (to commemorate the start of the Third Commission) and at the end of July (to remember Muggleton's release from imprisonment).
There remains a description of a Muggletonian holiday meeting held at the Reading Room at 7 New Street, London on 14 February 1869. There were about 40 members present, of whom slightly more than half were men. One-quarter were said to have been born into the faith. Tea was served at 5 o'clock. Discussion continued until 6 when a lady sang "Arise, My Soul, Arise" one of the Muggletonian divine songs. Then a large bowl of port negus with slices of lemon was served and a toast enjoined to absent friends. More songs were sung by each who volunteered. Beer was brought in and supper was served at half past eight. "It was a plain substantial meal; consisting of a round of beef, a ham, cheese, butter, bread and beer. Throughout the evening, every one seemed heartily to enjoy himself or herself, with no lack of friendliness, but with complete decorum." No speeches were made. "By ten o'clock all were on their way homeward." About 30 Muggletonians enjoyed at least one seaside outing to Hastings after the First World War.
There is also an account for a far older holiday meeting which Lodowicke Muggleton and his daughter, Sarah, attended in July 1682 at the Green Man pub in Holloway, then a popular rural retreat to the north of London. In addition to a goodly meal with wine and beer, a quartern of tobacco, one-fifth of a pound, was gotten through and a shilling paid out to "ye man of the bowling green".