John Saddington (c.1634?–1679) was a Muggletonian writer and London sugar merchant, originally from Arnesby in Leicestershire.
He became unsettled when, as an eighteen-year-old, he read a book called A sword troubled, or, The Terror of Tythes in which ministers who took tithes were criticised as "oppressors of the poor and robbers of God."
He admits he would have been persuaded by the Quakers if he had heard of them first but he later rejected them because "they will not acknowledge the resurrection of the body of Christ."
He first heard of John Reeve and Lodowicke Muggleton from an apprentice friend who had met the pair in Bridewell gaol.
He seems to have been one of the first adherents to the Muggletonian faith and, as a consequence, liked to style himself "the eldest son of the Commission of the Spirit" and "An Ancient Believer".
Certainly, he was one of the most loyal of believers and spoke out on behalf of Muggleton's point of view during the rebellion of 'The Nine Assertions', engineered by William Medgate, a London scrivener, from January 1671.
Muggleton was unable to defend himself as he was on the run from an arrest warrant and living in hiding amongst the watermen of Wapping.
The revolt was about Nine Assertions, said by William Medgate to have been made by Lodowicke Muggleton, and which were thought to deviate from the true prophecy revealed to John Reeve.
The Articles of True Faith is just a pamphlet, first published in 1675, said to have been printed anew in 1830[6] and definitely reprinted in 1880.
[9] The hugely abusive style of the exchange of pamphlets seems to derive entirely from a personal trait of Lodowicke Muggleton, not emulated by his followers.
It is fair to say that Quakers such as Isaac Pennington, William Penn and George Fox, paid him back as good as he gave.
John Reeve's correspondence with Isaac Pennington is far more measured and persuasive and, from a Muggletonian perspective, the last word had already been written long before in Laurence Clarkson's definitive The Quakers Downfall (1659).
It is true Muggletonians do not accept the idea of the devil as a distinct personality but as a 'seed' present, to a greater or lesser extent, in all human beings.
In articles 33 to 38, he sets out the Muggletonian belief that all human bodies and all souls are mortal and must die, eventually to face either a glorious resurrection or a second death when time is brought to an end.
This issue becomes important in his other, much more substantial, published work, A Prospective-glass for Saints and Sinners where he enlarges upon the status of John Reeve and Lodowicke Muggleton.
He has a bright, journalistic style which is appealing and, above all, he couches his comments in the everyday experience of urban tradesmen and housewives and does not begin from bible doctrine.
His reasons are that he saw little need to write whilst there was still a live prophet amongst them and because, if he wrote, he had to make reference to his own experience which he felt reluctant to do.
Just what this experience was that might make his fellow believers question if he were a fit and proper person to exhort them to righteousness, he naturally doesn't say.
The choice of content for the book is partially influenced by events that were recent to its time of writing, notably the rebellion led by William Medgate over whether God took any notice of everyday affairs on earth.
Those who championed a positive response tended to privilege John Reeve and to allege that it was Lodowicke Muggleton who was introducing new and erroneous ideas of his own fancy.
They drew attention to the consequences of the dispute, especially that if God took no notice there was no court of appeal against Muggleton's supreme authority.
To that, Muggleton's simple answer was that if people only obey the law from fear of being caught and punished then there is no honesty in the matter.
"Compliance based upon fear is no moral position at all," says Professor William M. Lamont, who believes, "It is no exaggeration to say that his answer anticipates the Kantian doctrine of the autonomy of ethics.
"Again, it is not the earning of a great deal of money in a day, or a week, that causes a man and his family to live comfortably, but the well managing of what he getteth, this I know by experience."
What is present in Saddington's work, and which passed John Reeve by, is that the Jesus who shared our human predicament did so as redeemer.
Anyone who seeks honour in this world cannot remain committed to the faith because the great and good will insist upon a change of ways.
(p. 41) And those who strive for greatness will draw down upon themselves the causes of their undoing in the form of the envy and malice of others who seek their place.
Saddington rejects the instruction to "take no care for tomorrow but let the day bring forth for itself" as being suitable only to the Apostles.
He maintains these give clear evidence that God is not an infinite spirit capable of being in all earthly places at once.
(p. 88) He gives supporting examples of God's appearing in the garden and asking, "where art thou, Adam?