we should have expected. "I was so well satisfied in my mind as to my
eternal happiness, that I was resolved now to be quiet and to get as
good a living as I could in this world and live as comfortably as I
could here, thinking that this revelation should have been beneficial
to nobody but myself." The "motional voices," and visions, and
questionings, continued from April 1651 to January 1652; and it was
during this time that the intimacy between Muggleton and Reeve became
more closely cemented, for "John Reeve was so taken with my language
that his desires were _extreme earnest_ that he might have the same
revelation as I had. His desires were so great that he was troublesome
unto me, for if I went into one room, into another, he would follow me
to talk to me." His persistence was rewarded, and just when Muggleton's
visions ceased "in the month of January 1652, about the middle of the
month, John Reeve came to me very joyful and said, Cousin Lodowick, now
said he, I know what revelation of Scripture is as well as thee."
Reeve's revelations increased, and never ceased for two weeks. "First
visions, then by voice of words to the hearing of the ear three
mornings together the third, fourth, and fifth days of February, 1652,
and the year of John Reeve's life forty-two, and the year of my life
forty-one."
Two men in this curious ecstatic condition obviously could not stop at
this point. It was a critical moment--would they enter into rivalry or
spiritual partnership? If the latter, then who was to be the leader,
who would make the first move? It was soon settled.
"The first evening God _spake_ to John Reeve he came to my house and
said, Cousin Lodowick, God hath given thee unto me for ever, and the
tears ran down both sides his cheeks amain. So I asked him what was the
matter, for he looked like one that had been risen out of the grave, he
being a fresh-coloured man the day before, but the tears ran down his
cheeks apace." John Reeve was not yet prepared to deliver his
commission with authority; it was coming, but not yet. Meanwhile he
turned to Muggleton's children and pronounced them blessed, "but
especially thy daughter Sarah, she shall be the teacher of all the
women in London." Sarah was hiding on the stairs and was not a little
afraid; she was a girl of fourteen, but she accepted her mission there
and then.
She proved to be a valuable helper, "and several persons came
afterwards to my house more to discourse with her than us, and they
marvelled that one so young should have such knowledge and wisdom."
Next day John Reeve came again, and Muggleton was pronounced to be the
_mouth_ of the new revelation, "as Aaron was given to be Moses' mouth."
The first thing to be done was to depose the other two prophets, Robins
and Tannye, and to hoise them on their own petard. It had to be seen
who could damn hardest. For one moment even Muggleton's stout heart
failed, he would take another with him to be present at the great trial
of strength. He called upon a certain Thomas Turner to accompany him,
"else you must be cursed to all eternity. But his wife was exceeding
wroth and fearful, and she said, if John Reeve came again to her
husband that she would run a spit in his guts, so John Reeve cursed her
to eternity." Whereupon Turner, appalled by the sentence, complied with
the order and went. The three presented themselves before the other
madman, and John Reeve uttered his testimony, denouncing him as a false
prophet and gave him a month to repent of his misdeeds. When the month
had elapsed Reeve wrote the sentence of eternal damnation upon him "and
left it at his lodging, and after a while he and his great matters
perished in the sea. For he made a little boat to carry him to
Jerusalem, and going to Holland to call the Jews there, he and one
Captain James was cast away and drowned, so all his powers came to
nothing."
The day after the interview with Tannye, the prophets proceeded to deal
with John Robins. He had been thrown into Bridewell by Cromwell, and
there he lay, his worshippers still resorting to him for any one with
money could visit a prisoner in gaol as often as he pleased. When the
prophets appeared at the gate empty handed, the keeper as a matter of
course refused them admittance. Then said John Reeve to the keeper,
"Thou shall never be at peace." By and by they were shown where
Robins's cell was; they summoned him to the window, and a strange
interview took place, which is minutely described. It ended by Reeve
delivering his charge and pronouncing his sentence. Many had been the
crimes of John Robins. He had ruined and deceived men in a multitude of
ways; among others "thou givest them leave to abstain by degrees from
all kinds of food, thou didst feed them with windy things, as apples
and other fruit that was windy, and they drank nothing but water;
therefore look what measure thou hast measured to others we will
measure again to thee."
John Robins was utterly mastered; "he pulled his hands off the grates
and laid them together and said, It is finished; the Lord's will be
done." In two months he had written a letter of recantation, was
released from durance, and is heard of no more.
"Thus the reader may see that these two powers were brought down in
these two days' messages from the Lord."
The world was all before them now. It remained that the new prophets
should have some distinctive dogma, and that the printing press should
be called in as an accessory to spread their fame. Again John Reeve
took the lead, and in 1652 he wrote an account of his divine commission
and published his first work, _A Transcendant Spiritual Treatise_,
which told of his last revelation of the message to Tannye and Robins.
While the book was passing through the press the prophets lived by
their trade, and made no attempt to preach before any assembly. They
_talked_ incessantly, and they cursed liberally. At last the children
in the streets began to follow Reeve and pelt him, crying after him,
"There goes the prophet that damns people!" Muggleton, meanwhile, was
always ready to meet an inquirer, and to eat and drink with him. "On
one occasion an old acquaintance would needs have me drink with him,
that he might have some talk with me, and there followed a neighbour of
his, a gentleman, as we call them; his name was Penson, and he sat down
in our company." Soon Penson began to deride and abuse the prophet;
whereupon Muggleton calmly "did pronounce this Penson cursed to
eternity." Penson did not like being damned under the circumstances.
"Then he rose up, and with both his fists smote upon my head... But it
came to pass that this Penson was sick immediately after, and in a week
or ten days after he died, much troubled in his mind, and tormented
insomuch that his friends and relations sought to apprehend me for a
witch, he being a rich man, but they couldn't tell how to state the
matter, so they let it fall."
It is pretty clear that John Reeve was from the first disposed to go
beyond his brother prophet; and shortly after the incident of Penson's
death Reeve made a grand _coup_, which produced a profound impression.
Muggleton had damned a _gentleman_. Reeve tried his power upon the same
class, and succeeded in actually converting two of them, who were
influential men among the Ranters. The Ranters were startled and
puzzled. "And it came to pass that one of these Ranters kept a
victualling house and sold drink in the Minories, and they would spend
their money there. So John Reeve and myself came there, and many of
them despised our declaration. So John Reeve gave sentence of eternal
damnation upon many of them, and one of them, being more offended than
all the rest, was moved with such wrath and fury that five or six men
could hardly keep him off, his fury was so hot. Then John Reeve said
unto the people standing by, 'Friends,' said he, 'I pray you stand
still on both sides of the room, and let there be a space in the
middle, and I will lay down my head upon the ground and let this
furious man tread upon my head and do what he will unto me....' So John
Reeve pulled off his hat and laid his face flat to the ground, and the
people stood still. So the man came running with great fury, and when
he came near him, lifting up his foot to tread on his neck, the man
started back again and said, 'No, I scorn to tread upon a man that
lieth down to me.' And the people all marvelled at this thing."
Though Muggleton does not make much of this incident, it appears to
have been a very important one in the early history of the sect, for
from this moment the numbers of Muggletonians began to increase, and
they began to absorb a small army of wandering monomaniacs who were
roaming about London and talking about _religion_, and visions, and
revelations, and attaching themselves first to one body and then to
another, according as they could get admission to the meeting-houses
and be allowed to preach and harangue. Astrologers too, came and
conferred with the prophets, and drunken scoffers laid bets that they
would get the prophet's blessing; and on one occasion a company of
"Atheistical Ranters" made a plot to turn the tables upon Muggleton,
and damn him and Reeve. Three of "the most desperatest" agreed to do
it. "So the time appointed came, and there was prepared a good dinner
of pork, and the three came ready prepared to curse us." Part of the
agreement was that the dinner should follow upon the cursing. But
whether it was that the rogues could do nothing until they were
fortified with drink, or that a sudden spasm of conscientiousness came
upon them, or that they were like superstitious people who with
blanched lips loudly protest that they do not believe in ghosts, but
decline on principle to walk through a churchyard after dark, these
three fellows all ran away from their engagements at the eleventh hour.
"So they departed without their dinner of pork."
The prophets were becoming notorious. The Ranters and John Robins had
been vanquished; their first book was published and was selling; they
were advertising themselves widely, and being advertised by friends and
foes; but as yet they had not been persecuted, and as yet they had not
put very prominently forward any distinctive or special theology. They
claimed to be prophets, but their mission, What was it? What were they
charged to proclaim?
It was just about this time that the works of Jacob Boehm had begun to
exercise a very great influence upon the visionaries in England. The
_Mercurius Teutonicus_ was first published in an English translation in
1649, and the _Signatura_ _Rerum_ had appeared in 1651. Muggleton had
certainly read these books, and as certainly turned them to account.
The jargon of the German mystic was exactly what he wanted in his
present state of mind, and there was that in the new philosophy which
commended itself vastly to him. Not that he, as an inspired prophet,
could for one moment admit that he had received any light from man or
was under any obligation to anything but the divine illumination
enlightening him directly and immediately; but the obligation was there
all the same, and to Jacob Boehm's influence we must attribute the
evolution of the distinctive doctrine of the Muggletonians, which just
about this time comes into obtrusive prominence.
It was at the beginning of the year 1653 that the prophets made their
first important convert. Up to this time they had been heard of only in
the back streets of London. But now a New England merchant named
Leader, who had made a fortune in America, and had come back in disgust
at the intolerance and persecution that prevailed among the colonists,
made advances to Muggleton. Leader was in a despondent state of mind,
and on the lookout for a religion with some novelty in it. He too had,
it seems, been a student of Jacob Boehm, and the _Signatura Rerum_ had
opened out a new line of speculation to him. "His first question was
concerning God--whether God, that created all things, could admit of
being any form of Himself?"
Prophets are never at a nonplus, and never surprised by a question; the
more transcendental the problem, the more need for the prophetic gift
to solve it. In fact, the prophet comes in to help when all human
cunning is at fault.
Accordingly Mr. Leader's question led to a discussion which is all set
down at full for those who choose to read it, and as the result of that
discussion comes out into clearness the astounding declaration which
henceforth appears as the main article of the Muggletonian theology.
"God hath a body of His own, as man hath a body of his own; only God's
body is spiritual and heavenly, clear as _christial_, brighter than the
sun, swifter than thought, yet a body."
Hitherto the prophets had been groping after a formula which might be
their strength, but they had not been able to put it into shape. Jacob
Boehm's mysticism, passing through the alembic of such a mind as
Leader's, and subjected to that occult atmosphere which Muggleton lived
in, came forth in the shape of a new theology, transcendental,
unintelligible, but therefore celestial and sublime. The prophets from
this moment made a new departure.
Meanwhile, the unhesitating and authoritative damning of opponents
exercised a strange fascination over the multitude. Reeve and Muggleton
lived among the blackguards at their first start, and they damned the
blackguards pretty freely. In numberless instances the blackguards were
to all intents and purposes damned before Muggleton's sentence was
pronounced. They were fellows given over to drink and debauchery, sots
who had not much life in them, scoundrels who were in hiding, skulking
in the vilest holes of the city, whom the plague or famine would be
likely to rid the world of any day. They died frequently enough after
the sentence was pronounced, and it is quite conceivable that the
sentence may have hastened the end of many a poor wretch who had
nothing to live for. Nay, in more cases than one a timid man, when the
sentence was passed, was so terrified that he took to his bed there and
then, and never rose from it, or became insane, neglected his business,
and so was ruined; and as the number of the damned was always
increasing, the chances of strange accidents and misfortunes would go
on increasing also. People heard of these, and of these only.
What the prophets themselves did, it was only natural that their
followers would try to do also; indeed, it is wonderful that the
damning prerogative was not invaded much oftener than it was. It was
very rarely intruded upon, however. Once, indeed, a misguided and too
venturous believer named Cooper took upon him to usurp authority, and
pronounced the sentence of damnation upon a small batch of fifteen
scoffers who had jeered at him and the prophet's mission. The precedent
was a dangerous one, there was no telling what it would lead to if such
random and promiscuous damning was to go on. Next day Cooper fell
grievously sick, and conscience smote him; he could not be at peace
till he had confessed his fault and been forgiven. He was forgiven
accordingly, but he was admonished to lay to heart the warning, and to
presume no more. "Not but that I do believe," says Muggleton, "they
will all be damned," all the whole fifteen!
The movement was becoming a nuisance by this time, and Reeve got a
hint, and no obscure one, that a warrant would be issued against him,
"either from General Cromwell, or the Council of State, or from the
Parliament." So far from being deterred by the prospect--was there ever
a prophet who was frightened into silence?--he declared that if
Cromwell or the Parliament should despise him and his mission, "I would
pronounce them damned as I do you!" Though no warrant came from the
Council or Cromwell--a matter much to be regretted--yet a warrant was
taken out by five of the opponents, and the prophets were brought
before the Lord Mayor. As usual, a detailed account is given of the
proceedings, which are valuable as illustrating the method pursued in
those days in the examination of an accused person, and the procedure
of the court--so very different from our modern practice. The prophets
were committed for trial; they refused to give bail, and were thrown
into Newgate. It was the 15th of September, 1653, one of the great
festivals among the believers. The hideous picture of prison life in
Newgate deserves to be read even by those who have some acquaintance
with the horrors of our prisons at this time. The prophets were well
supplied with money, and so were spared some of the worst sufferings of
the place; but it was bad enough, in all conscience, and one night the
two narrowly escaped being hanged in their own room, and were only
saved by five condemned men, who came to the rescue. Muggleton says the
highwaymen and _the boys_ were most set against him; one of the
highwaymen, whenever he saw him in the Hall, "would come and deride at
me, and say, 'You rogue, you damn'd folks.' And so it was with the boys
that were prisoners; they would snatch off my hat, and pawn it for
half-a-dozen of drink. So the boys did, and I gave them sixpence every
time they did it, to please them." Highly gratifying to the boys!
While the two were in Newgate John Reeve wrote a letter to the Lord
Mayor and another to the Recorder, mildly damning them both. If we are
to believe Muggleton, the Recorder was somewhat disturbed and alarmed
by the sentence. When the day of trial came, Reeve bade the Lord Mayor
hold his peace and be silent, as became a damned man in the presence of
the prophets, and we are told the Mayor obeyed and said nothing more.
The two were condemned, nevertheless, and thrown into Bridewell for
seven months. Under the horrors of that dreadful imprisonment Reeve's
constitution broke down. He was never the same man again. He languished
on, indeed, for four years more, but he was a dying man, and he spent
his time in writing books, his followers kindly ministering to him in
his broken health and feebleness. The end came to him while visiting
some convents at Maidstone--good women, of course. "The one was Mrs.
Frances, the eldest; the second, Mrs. Roberts; the third, Mrs. Boner.
This Mrs. Frances closed up his eyes, for he said unto her, 'Frances,
close up mine eyes, lest my enemies say I died a staring prophet.'"
While Reeve and Muggleton were lying in Newgate, another mystic--are we
to call him a prophet too?--was lying in Carlisle gaol. George Fox, the
Quaker, had fallen into the hands of Wilfrid Lawson, then High Sheriff
for the county, who had not spared him. Just about the time that the
London prophets were discharged, Fox arrived in London under the
custody of Captain Drury, and had that memorable interview with
Cromwell which readers of Fox's Journal are not likely to forget,
though Carlyle has gone far to spoil the story by slurring it over.
It was a great event to the Quakers to have their leader in London. He
had only once before been in the Metropolis--that was nine years
ago--and then he had been "fearful," had done nothing, was tongue-tied,
and had gladly escaped to itinerate among the _steeple houses_ in the
north. This time he had gained acceptance with the Protector. No man
would meddle with him from henceforth or let them look to it! The
Quakers were, of course, elated; they were going to carry all before
them; they met to organize a grand campaign for proselytizing all
England. The two _commissionated prophets_ were by no means dismayed,
by no means inclined to be outdone by the Quakers; they invited them to
a disputation--a trial of the spirits, in fact. It came off,
accordingly, in Eastcheap, and George Fox was there, and with him two
or three of his "ministers whom the Lord raised up." It is not a little
significant that Fox makes no mention of this meeting in his
Journal-significant because he never omits to speak of his successes,
and never tells us anything of his failures. Nay, he studiously omits
all mention of Muggleton's name throughout the Journal, and in his
books against him indulges in really violent language. Muggleton, on
the other hand, speaks of this discussion at Eastcheap as if it had
been a serious check to the Quakers, and from this time to his death he
never ceased to assail them with a resolute aggressiveness which
indicates no sort of misgiving in his power to deal with his
antagonists. The discussion, however, ended in Fox and his
supporters-five in all-receiving the sentence of damnation from the two
prophets, and from this moment there was internecine war between the
Quakers and the Muggletonians; each denouncing the other fiercely, and
issuing books against the other by the score-works which have happily
been long ago forgotten, to the great advantage of mankind. If,
however, any one, curious in such lore, is desirous of finding out what
cursing and swearing, regarded as one of the Fine Arts, may achieve
when skilfully managed by adepts, let him by all means turn to the
pamphlets of Pennington, Richard Farnsworth, and others of the Quaker
body, while delivering their souls against Muggleton, and the
counterblasts of Muggleton, Claxton, and their friends in reply. One of
the choicest diatribes of these _esprits forts_, as we may well call
them, was hurled at the prophet by William Penn.
Muggleton had some very zealous converts at Cork--for there were
believers everywhere by this time--and as they were people of substance
and much in favour, they were making some way. Of course they came into
collision with the Quakers, and not without success. Penn had early
fallen under the influence of Richard Farnsworth, whom Muggleton had
damned in 1654, and Penn's father had sent him over to manage his Irish
estates, in the hope of getting the new notions out of the young man's
head. The experiment failed, and young Penn, now only twenty-four years
old, had returned to England in 1668 as staunch a Quaker as ever. There
was a leading man among the Quakers, Josiah Cole by name, whom
Muggleton had solemnly damned; he was in failing health, and he died a
few days after the sentence was pronounced. The Muggletonians were
jubilant, and some of the Quakers were disturbed and alarmed. Penn's
heart was moved within him, and with all the fervid indignation of
youth he stepped forward to draw the sword of the Lord. He printed a
letter to Muggleton which should reassure the waverers. It thundered
out defiance. "Boast not," he says, "thou enemy of God, thou son of
perdition and confederate with the unclean croaking spirits reserved
under chains to eternal darkness.... I boldly challenge thee with thy
six-foot God and all the host of Luciferian spirits, with all your
commissions, curses, and sentences, to touch and hurt me. And this
know, O Muggleton: on you I trample, and to the bottomless pit are you
sentenced, from whence you came, and where the endless worm shall gnaw
and torture your imaginary soul."
Muggleton replied with his usual coolness, and pronounced his sentence
upon the young enthusiast. Neither was a man easily to be put down; but
whereas the prophet's followers were wholly unmoved by all the attacks
upon them, the Quakers found the Muggletonians extremely troublesome,
and it is impossible to resist the conviction that large numbers of the
Quakers were won over to join the opposite camp. Nay, it looks as if
Muggleton had really some strange power over the weaker vessels among
the Quakers, and had actually _frightened_ some of them. Writing in
1670, he says: "You are not like the people you were sixteen years ago;
there were few Quakers then, but they had witchcraft fits, but now of
late I do not hear of any Quaker that hath any fits, no, not so much as
to buz and hum before the fit comes. But if you, Fox, doth know of any
of you Quakers that have any of those witchcraft fits as formerly,
bring them to me, and I shall cast out that devil which causeth those
fits." The Quakers could hardly have been as angry as they were, nor
their books have been so many and their writers so voluble during
twenty years and longer, if Muggleton had not been a disputant to be
dreaded, and a prophet with the faculty of drawing others after him.
In the whole course of his career, which extended over nearly half a
century, Muggleton never found any difficulty in maintaining his
authority over his followers. There were indeed two attempts at mutiny,
but they were promptly suppressed, and they collapsed before they had
made any head. The first was in 1660, shortly after the death of John
Reeve. Lawrence Claxton, a "great writer" among the Muggletonians, had
during Reeve's long illness come very much to the fore as an opponent
of the Quakers, and his success had a little turned his head. In one
passage of his writings he had taken rank as Reeve's equal and
representative, and had put himself on a level with "the
Commissionated." It was an awful act of impiety. "For," says Muggleton,
"as John Reeve was like unto Elijah, so am I as Elisha, and his place
was but as Gehazi, and could stand no longer than my will and pleasure
was." Claxton had been formally blessed, therefore he could never be
damned, but excommunicated he could be and was. He at once dropt out
and we hear of him no more.