Muggleton, Ludowicke

(1609–98)

   Sect Founder.

   As a young man, Muggleton worked in London and came under the influence of various Puritan mystical and millenarian groups. With his cousin, John Reeve, he came to believe that he was one of the two witnesses mentioned in Chapter 11 of the Book of Revelation, who were to seal the Elect immediately before the Day of Judgement. Spurred on by this conviction, he issued a series of tracts in which he argued that his was the final message from God, that reason was the creation of the Devil, that matter and God were the two ultimate realities and that the unforgivable sin was to ignore his (Muggleton’s) teaching. He was unafraid of controversy and had many debates with the Quakers and other groups. His followers were known as Muggletonians and the sect survived into the nineteenth century.

   C. Hill et al., The World of the Muggletonians (1983);

   A. Jessopp, ‘The prophet of Walnut Tree Yard’, in The Coming of the Friars and Other Historical Essays (1889).