Muggletonianism
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.
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.
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.
[note 1] 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.
According to Rev Dr Alexander Gordon of Belfast, "The system of belief is a singular union of opinions which seem diametrically opposed.
A purely spiritual deity, lacking any locus, would be an absurdity (so Muggletonians vehemently told the Quakers) incapable of action in a material world.
At worst, John Reeve said, it encourages people to ascribe to the deity a whole ragbag of inconsistent human attributes expressed as superlatives.
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.
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.
Muggletonian meetings were simple comings-together of individuals who appeared to feel that discussion with like-minded believers helped clarify their own thoughts.
[note 4] Then a large bowl of port negus with slices of lemon was served and a toast enjoined to absent friends.
[13] 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".
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.
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.
As a fruit farmer, Mr Noakes received a petrol ration to take his produce to Covent Garden market in central London.
"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.
After first attempting to take control, Clarkson eventually submitted to Muggleton completely, even agreeing to give up writing and keeping that promise.
Revelation say the Two Witnesses: 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.
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.
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.
During the nineteenth century, this formerly non-proselytizing Protestant sect became increasingly vocal and published several books intended for general audiences.
Notable Muggletonian writers include Laurence Clarkson (1615–1667) an itinerant preacher born in Preston, Lancashire; John Saddington (1634?
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.
[note 12] Thomas Robinson (see above) in opposition to the Frost brothers strongly preferred the 1656 edition of A Divine Looking-Glass to Muggleton's revision of 1661 [19] and also wrote an unpublished manuscript Upon New Thoughts circulated to Muggletonians which argues for a God in an infinite universe.
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.
[21][page needed] Other gifts have joined the archive, most notably from Eileen Muggleton of the commonplace book of John Dimock Aspland (1816–1877).
Mrs Louise Barnes of Buffalo, New York, wrote to London in 1936 about the US Muggletonian archive kept by her father, the late Alfred Hall.
