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 Christ Jesus. 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 have avoided all forms of worship or preaching and, in the past, met only for discussion and socializing amongst members. The movement has been egalitarian, apolitical, pacifist and has resolutely avoided evangelism. Members attained a degree of public notoriety by cursing those who reviled their faith. This practice, which proved uncannily effective, ceased in the mid-nineteenth century and one of the last to suffer was the novelist Sir Walter Scott.
The faith attracted public attention in 1979 when Mr Philip Noakes left the entire Muggletonian archive of correspondence, general papers and publications to the British Library.
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The movement was born on 3 February, 1651 (old style) when London tailor John Reeve received a commission from God "to the hearing of the ear as a man speaks to a friend"[1] which has a distinct resonance to the calling of Moses.[2] That morning, John Reeve was told four things:-
Reeve believed that both 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. Although Reeve was not specifically told that fact, in the expectant climate of the time, a context in Revelation was probably considered obvious. After Reeve's death, Muggleton had a brief struggle for control of the group with Laurence Clarkson, a former ranter and subsequently with followers of John Reeve who did not accept Muggleton's authority.
They emphasized the Millennium and the Second Coming of Christ and believed, among other things, that the soul was mortal, that Jesus was God (and not being Trinitarian that when he died there was no God in heaven, Moses and Elijah looking after heaven until the resurrection), that Heaven was six miles above earth, that God was between five and six feet tall and, like the Quakers, that any external religious ceremony was not necessary. Some scholars think Muggletonian doctrine may have influenced the work of the artist and poet William Blake.[4]
Muggletonian beliefs are clearly not systematic. Nor are they the working out of a single guiding principle through all areas of life. On the contrary, their origins seem to lie entirely within the confused anxieties and folk-beliefs of England in the 1640s and 1650s. In his subsequent spiritual autobiography, Muggleton recalled the matters which had worried him as a young man and it is exactly these worries that the faith was designed to resolve. Recent attempts have been made to locate the movement within earlier intellectual traditions, most notably the Eternal Gospel of Joachim of Fiore. 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."[5] There had been at least one earlier outbreak of the Two Last Witnesses about which John Reeve knew.[6] Also, in part, the movement was a reaction against the Ranter 'summer of love'.
The appeal of Muggletonianism to believers lies in its simplicity and flexibility. It sets out a small number of core beliefs which, if accepted, are said to give assurance of personal salvation to the believer. Beyond the six basic principles, free-thinking is the norm. Individual conscience, once operating in this context, can confidently be relied upon as a sure guide. Scripture is inessential because the law is written within human hearts. The sect has never been exclusive. Non-believers may also find salvation, but the Muggletonians hold that only they possess certainty in this matter.
The six principles of Muggletonianism have perhaps been best set out by George Williamson[7]
These principles derive from Lodowicke Muggleton but he 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.
To the non-believer, this selection of principles is often a puzzle. 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."[8]
Muggletonianism is 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 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:-
However, Muggletonians have a distaste for what they call 'scriptural literalism' and would hesitate to ascribe to the belief, common throughout English Protestantism, that scripture contains all that is needful for salvation. One of the purposes of the Third commission is to make clear what was previously held obscure in scripture. Their approach to scripture incorporates quite explicit interpretation and separates texts into 'positive' or 'privative': some feel arbitrarily.
Professor Lamont styles the Muggletonians "disorganized religion". They held no AGMs or 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 Rooms between 1869 and 1918. Mr Philip Noakes may not have really been the last Muggletonian, but he was most 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)."[11]
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 amongst those known and there must have been many others, especially in East Anglia and Kent.
In both London and Derbyshire two types of meeting were observed. 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 February 14 1869. There were about 40 members present, of which slightly more than half were men. One quarter was said to have been born into the faith.[12] 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.[13] 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 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."[14]
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'.
Outside of holiday times, meetings seems to have altered little with time and place. They comprised discussion, readings and songs. There was no public worship, no instruction, no prayer. There is no record of any participant being moved by the spirit. Until mid-Victorian times, London meetings were held in the back rooms of pubs. In the early days, this is said to have provided an appearance of outward conformity with the Conventicle Acts 1664 and 1667. The meeting would look and sound to outsiders like a private or family party. Nothing would advertise religious observance. By 1869, pub life had become irksome and the London congregation obtained their first Reading Room at 7 New Street, which was reckoned to be built on the former site of Lodowicke Muggleton's birthplace, Walnut Tree Yard. This was made possible by legacies from Catherine Peers, Joseph Gandar and the Frost family; all of whom had been active in the faith. The money invested in government stock yielded sufficient income to pay the rent and the wages of a live-in caretaker who, for most of the Victorian period, was an unemployed shoe-repairer named Thomas Robinson. 7 New Street is perhaps the only site with Muggletonian connections still extant. However, it may require considerable historical imagination from the modern passer-by to gain a mental picture of what it would have been like in Victorian times. Then, the area was full of warehouses and factories, not the smart, professional consultancies of today.[15] For his visit in 1913, George Williamson tellingly describes it as being "in the East End"[16]
By May 1918, wartime inflation seems to have undermined the Victorian financial settlement.[17] The Muggletonians moved to cheaper rented premises not far away at 74 Worship Street, to the north of Finsbury Square.[18] They remained there until probably the autumn of 1940 when the building was destroyed by a firebomb during the London Blitz. This was the event which led to the transfer of the Muggletonian archive to Mr Noakes' farm in Kent. As a fruit farmer, Mr Noakes received a petrol ration to take his produce to Covent Garden market in central London. On the return journey, the archive was packed into the empty boxes and taken to safety.
Right from the start, there was a crucial ambivalence in Muggletonian beliefs. On one hand, only John Reeve is told of his Commission by the word of God. Yet two persons, Lodowicke Muggleton and John Reeve, are appointed the Last Witnesses to fulfill the prophecy of Revelation 11:3 where no distinction is drawn between one witness and the other. At this point, John Reeve does introduce a distinction of his own. "And I have given thee Lodowicke Muggleton to be thy mouth: at that very moment the holy spirit brought into my mind that scripture of Aaron given unto Moses."[19] So, does John Reeve see himself on a different spiritual plane to Lodowicke "the mouth" Muggleton? Whilst Reeve was alive, we have no evidence that anyone took Lodowicke Muggleton very seriously except as Reeve's ever-present sidekick. Even at their blasphemy trial in 1653, The Recorder of London, after examining John Reeve, turns to Muggleton and says, "Let Aaron speak".[20] Certainly, Muggleton appears to have written nothing whilst Reeve was alive. All this may show that the struggle between Muggleton and Laurence Clarkson after the death of Reeve was based upon a simple misunderstanding. Clarkson and Reeve were both ideologues and we know that Clarkson was very impressed by Reeve when they first met. It may have seemed quite natural to Clarkson that a vacancy arose upon Reeve's death and that he was clearly the qualified man to fill it. He may simply not have taken Muggleton's role as the surviving witness very seriously. That Clarkson came to see how he had misread the situation may explain why he gave in to Muggleton so completely, even agreeing to give up writing and keeping that promise. The alternative explanation, that Muggleton brought Clarkson to heel by cutting off his allowance, seems unlikely given that Clarkson had spent all his life making a living as a wandering preacher and casual minister.[21] Was the root of the problem that Reeve and Muggleton hadn't taken their role seriously enough themselves?
What does Revelation say the Two Witnesses are to do?
Muggleton and Reeve's two predecessors, the weavers Richard Farnham and John Bull, did try to live out their script particularly in their role as bringers of plagues. However, there is no evidence that John Reeve and Lodowicke Muggleton felt in any way obliged to follow suit. Contemporaries did comment adversely upon this, especially upon the death of Reeve from all-too-natural causes followed by his equally mundane funeral at the New Bethlehem Burial grounds.
Muggletonians, famously, have no use for prayer, public worship or preaching. The first two are clearly pointless if God takes no notice. But the third follows less smoothly from the principles. In ordinary times, preaching is morally dangerous because those who hear and respond by mocking the faith crystallise their own damnation. How much better had they never heard at all. But, as the end of time draws nigh, the urgent task is to rouse the elect to seize their salvation. It is a last chance. Had Reeve and Muggleton taken their own pretensions more seriously, they might have seen preaching in a better light. We may suspect Muggletonian aversion to preaching has been less a matter of principle than that they have been particularly poor in the performance thereof. Muggleton himself ruefully records that out of his family, friends and neighbours he managed only to convert his two daughters and his cousin Roger in Northamptonshire.[22] If the truth is that those who converted to Muggletonianism did so as a result of inner contemplation, then Richard Farnham and John Bull may have been more honest in explaining their own calling as resulting from their perusal of scripture.
The Muggletonians had a belief that they could damn and bless according to the will of God and the apparent success of such damning (apparently resulting in the death of certain religious, mainly Quaker, opponents) brought the sect great prestige. A vigorous tract war ensued with their Quaker opponents that lasted until the death of Muggleton.
Maitland's 1739 edition of A History of London gives two Muggletonian meeting-places. One, for the Southwark congregation, is in Barnaby Street.[23] The other, for the Aldersgate congregation, is in Old Street Square.[24] Presumably, both of these were public houses, rented rooms or private homes as no dedicated meeting room existed before 1869.
In "The Making of the English Working Class" E. P. Thompson says, "The Muggletonians (or followers of Ludovic Muggleton) were still preaching in the fields and parks of London at the end of the eighteenth century."[25] Those Muggletons whose lives we know about would have rejected preaching as pointless and spiritually dangerous. Were there other groups of Muggletonians who operated differently? At present, historians cannot answer, but the possibility is there. Firstly, other denominations of that era, such as Methodists and Baptists, existed in a profusion of forms as E. P. Thompson's own index shows. Secondly, contact between those Muggletonians about whom we do know was sporadic, at best. "For example, those in Derbyshire were ignorant of the existence of any persons entertaining the same faith in London until one of their number removed thither to seek employment and, after residing there a short time, heard of the London bretheren by mere accident."[26] Thirdly, the name existed widely in the public domain without much knowledge of what it meant. Sir Walter Scott received eternal damnation for his ignorant remarks in "Woodstock". Dickens incorporates All-Muggleton into Pickwick Papers. A character called Mrs Snowdrop in Douglas William Jerrold's "Nell Gwynne" (1833) says, "Nothing now will serve her but to go upon the stage. Tisn't my fault. I'm sure I put the pious Mr Muggleton under her pillow every night." So everyone thought they knew what a Muggletonian was.
During the nineteenth century this formerly non-proselytizing Protestant sect became increasingly vocal and published several books intended for general audiences. In 1846, for example, the Muggletonian Isaac Frost published Two Systems of Astronomy, a lavishly illustrated book outlining the anti-Newtonian cosmology of the Muggletonians. This activity arose from the activity of the Frost brothers (Joseph and Isaac) who having made their fortune in the Derby Brass Foundry business proceeded to spend significant sums on publicising their sect once the family moved to London. A great quantity of books were published but very few were actually sold.
Notable Muggletonian writers include Laurence Clarkson (1615 - 1667) an itinerant preacher born in Preston, Lancashire; John Saddington (1634? - 1679) a London sugar merchant, originally from Arnesby, Leicestershire; Thomas Tomkinson (1631 - 1710) a Staffordshire yeoman farmer who moved to London in the 1680s; and Isaac Frost (1793 - 1858) and Joseph Frost (1791 - 1857), brothers who ran the family metallurgy business in Clerkenwell, London. Also deserving mention is Alexander Delamaine (died 1687), a wealthy London tobacco merchant who began The Great Book in 1682, which became the Muggletonian archive.[27]
The group survived up to the twentieth century. The last Muggletonian, Philip Noakes of Matfield, Kent, died on 26 February 1979; the sect's records, which he had kept, were then transferred to the British Library[28].The published works of the Muggletonian Brethren are still available from Gage Postal Books of Westcliffe-on-Sea, Essex.
There may be another archive still to be found. Mrs Louise Barnes of Buffalo NY wrote to London in 1936 about the US Muggletonian archive kept by her father, the late Alfred Hall. This collection was clearly treasured, mainly for family reasons. It may still exist.
"In Edward Thompson's words, Muggletonianism was a 'highly intellectual anti-intellectualism', and as such remarkably well adapted for survival among the semi-educated, self-taught, self-confident London artisans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."[29]