Muggletonians

The Muggletonians , named after Lodowicke Muggleton († 1694), were a small Protestant group in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were among the non-conformist dissenters who appeared during the English interregnum from 1649 to 1660.

The movement was sparked in 1652 by the visions of the tailor John Reeve and his cousin Lodowicke Muggleton, whom his followers regarded as the voice of the "Last Prophet of God". Muggelton and Reeves declared themselves to be the "two witnesses" from the Revelation of John ( Rev 11 : 3  LUT ). A summary of their teaching was published in 1656 under the title: The Divine Looking-Glass or the Third and Last Testament .

After Reeve's death in 1658, Muggleton had a brief battle for control in the group with Laurence Clarkson , a previous ranter .

The Muggletonians awaited the coming of the Messiah and were supporters of millenarianism . They believed, among other things, that the soul is mortal and that no formal religious ceremonies are necessary. Some scholars see influences of Muggle-tonian teaching in the work of the painter and poet William Blake .

The group survived into the 20th century. One of the last muggletonianism, Philip Noakes, died in 1979 in Matfield , County Kent . But there is anecdotal evidence that a Muggletonian was buried in 2000. The English archives of the group administered by Philipp Noakes were given to the British Library . The American Muggletonians' archive (in the US state of New York) still existed in 1936, but has been lost.

See also

• Church of England
• Dissenters
• Nonconformists

literature

• William Lamont: Last Witnesses. The Muggletonian History, 1652-1979. Ashgate, Aldershot 2006, ISBN 978-0-7546-5532-9 .
• EP Thompson : Witness against the Beast. William Blake and the moral law. University Press, Cambridge 1993, ISBN 0-521-22515-9 .