Lodowick Muggleton
Lodowick Muggleton (1609-1698) was an English religious figure and co-founder of the Muggletonian sect, a radical movement that emerged during the mid-seventeenth century. Born in Northamptonshire and orphaned at a young age, Muggleton spent his early life in London, where he became influenced by Puritan teachings. He initially sought wealth as a pawnbroker but ultimately rejected this path in favor of spiritual integrity after experiencing significant internal conflict about his vocation.
In 1651, Muggleton claimed to have received a profound revelation that assured him of eternal life, which led him to abandon public religious practices and focus on private spiritual understanding. Together with his cousin John Reeve, he asserted that they were the Two Witnesses prophesied in the Book of Revelation, tasked with delivering a unique interpretation of Christian doctrine. Their teachings emphasized predestination and a distinctive view of God, which included a physical embodiment.
Muggleton's beliefs attracted followers, primarily among the uneducated artisan class, and despite facing legal challenges and imprisonment for heretical views, he continued to write and publish works that contributed to the theological landscape of his time. The Muggletonians, alongside the Quakers, were notable for their survival into the twentieth century, representing a legacy of radical religious thought that challenged established norms in England. Muggleton's life was marked by personal loss and resilience, culminating in a relatively quiet later life after years of public controversy.
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Lodowick Muggleton
English religious leader and theologian
- Born: July 1, 1609
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: March 14, 1698
- Place of death: London, England
Claiming exclusive spiritual authority, Muggleton (along with his cousin, John Reeve) cofounded a sect known as the Muggletonians that continued into the twentieth century. He also authored books such as A Divine Looking-Glass and The Acts of the Witnesses.
Early Life
Born in July of 1609, Lodowick Muggleton (LAH-duh-wihk MUH-gul-tuhn) was the youngest of three children and son of John Muggleton, a Northamptonshire farrier. In June, 1612, when Lodowick was less than three years old, his mother, Mary Muggleton, died, and he was sent to live with a rural family. He returned to London at the age of fifteen, when he was apprenticed to a tailor, John Quick. While employed in London, Lodowick received religious instruction from and sympathized with Puritans, admiring their piety and happiness. Spurred by their teachings, he wanted to obey the commandment of proper Sabbath observance but could not convince his employer.
Because of his desire to acquire wealth, Muggleton wanted to become a pawnbroker, so he began working at a broker’s shop in Houndsditch. Eventually, the broker’s wife arranged for his engagement to her daughter, promising money as a wedding gift. Soon after their engagement, however, Muggleton went to work as a journeyman tailor with his Puritan cousin, William Reeve. Muggleton’s Puritan associates warned him not to become a pawnbroker, citing scriptural references that forbade usury and extortion, and he struggled with the decision of whether or not he should pursue this chosen vocation. He concluded that although he loved his fiancée, he would rather lose her (and his dream of becoming a wealthy pawnbroker) than lose his soul to eternal damnation.
From the Puritans, Muggleton learned to study the Scriptures and developed his skills in prayer. However, after the English Civil Wars in the 1640’s, the Puritans divided into many sects, and Muggleton was uncomfortable worshipping with any of these groups. While battling thoughts of atheism, he eventually gave up on public prayer and sermons, choosing instead to follow his conscience and a code of personal integrity.
Life’s Work
In 1650, Muggleton listened to many prophets and prophetesses on the streets. He and his cousins, William and John Reeve, associated with a radical sect called the Ranters and met John Robins, a man who claimed to be the Almighty God and the resurrected Adam and claimed to be able to raise key biblical figures from the dead. One day in April, 1651, Muggleton received a revelation lasting six hours, which quickened his mental faculties. He heard both internal and external voices, and, after initially suffering with disputations in his mind, he received assurance of eternal life and spiritual enlightenment. As a result, he claimed that all difficult spiritual questions became easy for him to answer. Following this initial revelation, Muggleton resolved not to meddle further with religion. This resolution was satisfying, because, since he did not aspire to be a public figure, he could now return to his temporal pursuits knowing that he was personally secure as one of God’s elect.
According to Muggleton, however, he continued to receive divine communication, regularly hearing voices that assisted him in scriptural understanding. Muggleton discussed his revelations with John Reeve, who thereafter visited him frequently from April, 1651, through January, 1652, hoping to have a similar experience himself. Over the course of three days, February 3-5, 1652, Reeve received successive revelations revealing that he was to act as God’s messenger and Muggleton was to serve as his mouthpiece, just as Aaron had served Moses. Reeve also announced that he and Muggleton were called to be the Two Witnesses prophesied in Revelations 11:3 to appear and testify before the Second Coming of Christ. Their duties were to proclaim the end of the world, teach the true Christian faith, and deliver blessings upon the elect and curses upon the reprobates.
Muggleton’s name appeared as joint author with John Reeve of A Transcendent Spiritual Treatise (1652), although it is possible that the book was penned solely by Reeve. This book described the commission of Reeve and Muggleton as the Two Witnesses and declared their doctrines. Consequently, because of their heretical teachings regarding the Trinity, both men were arrested in September, 1653, and imprisoned for six months by Lord Mayor John Fowke of London under the authority of the Blasphemy Act. Nevertheless, these Two Witnesses had excited interest in their work, and their adherents formed a sect that became known as Muggletonians. Laurence Clarkson was included among their small band of disciples, and when Reeve died in 1658, Clarkson unsuccessfully sought to take over leadership from Muggleton.
Reeve and Muggleton taught that all humankind came from one of two seeds: the elect were from the seed of Adam, and the damned were of the seed of Cain. They also declared that God is composed of both spirit and body and is in the form of a man, approximately 6 feet tall. God the Father decided to come to the earth, shed his immortality while in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and became the mortal Jesus. While living on earth, God delegated the stewardship of heaven to Elijah, who spoke from heaven when Jesus was baptized, and to Moses.
Muggleton and his first wife, Sarah (1616-1639), had three daughters, the second of whom died in infancy. After less than four years of marriage, Sarah passed away. Muggleton’s second wife, Mary (1626-1647), also bore three children—two sons and a daughter. However, two of them died in infancy, and the third lived less than ten years. Shortly after their third child’s death, Mary also passed away. At the age of 53, Muggleton married his third wife, Mary Martin, in 1663. That same year, during one of his missionary journeys, Muggleton was arrested and held in Derby jail for nine days. In 1670, authorities seized and destroyed Muggleton’s books in London. Arrested and convicted in 1677 for illegally publishing a heretical book, Muggleton, while pilloried for three consecutive days, was forced to watch his books burn before his eyes and was then imprisoned in Newgate for six months.
This public humiliation most likely finally subdued Muggleton, because the last twenty years of his life were relatively quiet and uneventful; he reportedly refrained from further declarations of damnation upon individuals. Although he did publish two theological tracts in 1680 and 1682, his major literary projects were primarily letters and his own autobiography. Muggleton died at the age of 88 on March 14, 1698.
Significance
As cofounder of the sect that bore his name, Muggleton, together with his followers, formed part of a radical movement of the mid-seventeenth century that was able to loosen the grip of the ruling elite of England. Their unorthodox ideas about God and religion, especially their anticlerical and predestinarian views, included them in the radical religious tradition. Along with other radical sects such as the Fifth Monarchists, the Muggletonians espoused and promoted millenarian expectations. However, unlike other radical sectarians, Muggleton and Reeve claimed exclusive authority from God, declaring their opponents to be religious counterfeits.
The Muggletonians and the Quakers were the only two sects organized in the late 1640’s and early 1650’s that survived into the twentieth century. Those who followed Muggleton were typically uneducated, low-income artisans like him. Although not concerned with proselytizing or holding formal meetings or worship services, Muggleton found converts, especially among the Ranters. Followers simply had to believe Muggleton in order to achieve salvation. He advised his followers on domestic issues and found new ways of offering blessings via mail order.
Several of Muggleton’s most important works are of somewhat unclear authorship. Although Reeve died in 1658, for example, A Divine Looking-Glass (1661) bears his name as well as Muggleton’s. Muggleton authored other books, such as A True Interpretation of the Eleventh Chapter of the Revelations of Saint John (1662), The Neck of the Quakers Broken (1663), and his posthumously published autobiography, The Acts of the Witnesses (1699).
Bibliography
Eichenger, Juleen Audrey. The Muggletonians: A People Apart. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Western Michigan University, 1999. Links Muggletonianism to the medieval heretical tradition and emphasizes its uniqueness from other seventeenth-century dissenting sects.
Hill, Christopher. “John Reeve, Laurence Clarkson, and Lodowick Muggleton.” The Collected Essays of Christopher Hill. Vol. 2. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986. Claims that the Muggletonians are historically significant because they and the Quakers are the only two sects founded in the late 1640’s and early 1650’s that survived into the twentieth century. Hill argues that all major Muggletonian doctrines originated in the writings of John Reeve and asserts that Reeve deserves to be known as the sect’s authentic founder.
Hill, Christopher, Barry Reay, and William Lamont. The World of the Muggletonians. London: Temple Smith, 1983. This collection of essays features diverse scholarly perspectives on Muggleton, Reeve, and Clarkson.
Lamont, William. “The Muggletonians, 1652-1979: A ’Vertical’ Approach.” Past & Present 99 (May, 1983): 22-40. Utilizing the Muggletonian archive, this essay presents an alternative way of viewing the history of the movement through the perspective of later Muggletonians.
Reay, Barry G. “Lodowick Muggleton.” Biographical Dictionary of British Radicals in the Seventeenth Century. Vol. 2. Edited by Richard L. Greaves and Robert Zaller. Brighton, Sussex, England: Harvester Press, 1983. Includes a biographical sketch of Muggleton and lists some of the core tenets of Muggletonians.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “The Muggletonians: A Study in Seventeenth-Century English Sectarianism.” Journal of Religious History 9 (1976): 32-49. Analyzes the major aspects of Muggletonian doctrine, specifically its organization and structure.
Underwood, T. L., ed. The Acts of the Witnesses: The Autobiography of Lodowick Muggleton and Other Early Muggletonian Writings. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. In addition to Muggleton’s autobiography and John Reeve’s A Transcendent Spiritual Treatise, Underwood provides a concise introductory chapter on the Muggletonian founders.
Whiting, C. E. Studies in English Puritanism from the Restoration to the Revolution, 1660-1688. New York: Kelley, 1968. Chapter 6, “The Minor Sects,” includes a focused, informative discussion on Muggleton’s life, disciples, and enemies.