Editing Muggletonianism (section)

== Beliefs ==
The six principles of Muggletonianism were perhaps best set out by George Williamson, a Roman Catholic who visited the London Muggletonians in 1913:<ref>{{Cite book |first=George Charles |last=Williamson |title=Lodowick Muggleton |location=London |publisher=Chiswick Press |date=1919 |p=30 |oclc=1216787}}</ref> 
* There is no God but the glorified Man Christ Jesus.
* There is no Devil but the unclean Reason of men.
* Heaven is an infinite abode of light above and beyond the stars.
* The place of Hell will be this Earth when sun, moon and stars are extinguished.
* Angels are the only beings of Pure Reason.
* The Soul dies with the body and will be raised with it.

These principles derive from Lodowicke Muggleton, who would have added one other matter as being of equal importance, namely, that God takes no immediate notice of doings in this world. If people sin, it is against their own consciences and not because God "catches them at it".

John Reeve's formulation also included pacifism and the doctrine of the two seeds (see  [[#2seeds|below]]).

According to Rev Dr [[Alexander Gordon (Unitarian)|Alexander Gordon]] of Belfast, "The system of belief is a singular union of opinions which seem diametrically opposed. It is rationalistic on one side, credulous on another."{{NoteTag|Alexander Gordon (1841–1931) first visited the London Muggletonians as a young journalist. He gave his experiences in two lectures to the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society which he had printed up as ''The Origins of the Muggletonians'' (1869) and ''Ancient and Modern Muggletonians'' (1870). He became principal of the Unitarian College in Manchester between 1889 and 1911 and revisited the Muggletonians again shortly after his retirement.{{Sfn|Lamont|2006|pp=3, 184}}}}

Muggletonianism was profoundly materialist. Matter pre-existed even the creation of our universe; nothing can be created from nothing. God, identified as the Holy One of Israel, is a being with a glorified body, in appearance much like a man. There can never be a spirit without a body. A purely spiritual deity, lacking any locus, would be an absurdity (so Muggletonians vehemently told the Quakers) incapable of action in a material world. The man Christ Jesus was not sent from God but was the very God appearing on this earth. Speculation about a divine nature and a human nature, or about the Trinity, is not in error so much as unnecessary. At worst, John Reeve said, it encourages people to ascribe to the deity a whole ragbag of inconsistent human attributes expressed as superlatives. Or, as Thomas Tomkinson drily remarked, it tends to give you a father of justice just when you most wanted a son of mercy.

{{Anchor|2seeds}} The Devil, on the other hand, should not be likened to a character from a Ben Jonson play. When the one reprobate angel was tossed from heaven to earth, he perished, but not before impregnating Eve so that Cain was born to perpetuate his frustrated rage upon this earth. The natural process of generation ensured that, even by the time of Noah, all humans had within themselves something from Seth and something from Cain. Muggletonians call this the '''doctrine of the two seeds''': the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. The former promoted faith within us, the latter promoted reasoning and desire. This is the conflict within every person. 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.

Reason stems from desire and lack. Reason is not seen as a sublime mental process but as a rather shoddy trick humans use to try to get what they misguidedly imagine they want. Angels are creatures of Pure Reason because their only desire is for God so that their lack will be totally satisfied over and over again. The reprobate angel was not at fault. God deliberately chose to deprive this angel of satisfaction so that, by his fall, the other angels would become aware that their perfection came from God and not from their own natures.

Professor [[William M. Lamont]] sees 17th-century Muggletonianism as an early form of liberation theology. Because there are no spirits without bodies, there can be no ghosts, no witches, no grounds for fear and superstition and no all-seeing eye of God. Once persons are contented in their faith, they are free to speculate as they please on all other matters. God will take no notice. And Muggletonian meetings did just that.

The Muggletonian canon is generally taken to comprise:
*The books of the Christian Old & New Testaments except those traditionally ascribed to Solomon, whose wisdom is seen as worldly rather than inspired. Crucially, this deletes [[Ecclesiastes]]. Muggleton expressed doubts about the [[Book of Job]] but it is too much of a favourite to remove. Thomas Tomkinson advances a neat compromise, "though the authority of the book is questioned by some, yet all admit it to be a true history."<ref>{{Cite book |first=Thomas |last=Tomkinson |author-link=Thomas Tomkinson |title=A System of Religion |orig-date=first printed 1729 |location=Clerkenwell |publisher=T. Goode |date=1857 |oclc=461717628}}</ref>
*The writings of the prophets of the Third Commission: ''A Transcendent Spiritual Treatise'' (1st Ed. 1652),{{Sfn|Reeve|Muggleton|1857}} ''[[A Divine Looking-Glass]]'' (1st ed, 1656) and other works 
*The [[Book of Enoch]] (Ethiopic Enoch or 1 Enoch). Muggletonians did not produce their own edition but did reprint ''Signification of the proper names occurring in the Book of Enoch from the Hebrew & Chaldee'' Rev [[David Aaron de Sola|D. A. De Sola]]. Finsbury: Isaac Frost (1852). Similarly, ''The Book of the Secrets of Enoch'' (Slavonic Enoch or 2 Enoch) which was introduced into English by [[Robert Henry Charles]] in 1896 would qualify.<ref>{{Cite book |first=R. H. |last=Charles |author-link=Robert Charles (scholar) |date=1999 |orig-date=originally published 1917 |title=The Book of Enoch |location=San Diego |publisher=Book Tree |isbn=978-1-58509-019-8}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |first=R. H. |last=Charles |author-link=Robert Charles (scholar) |date=1999 |orig-date=originally published 1896 |title=The Book of the Secrets of Enoch |location=San Diego |publisher=Book Tree |isbn=978-1-58509-020-4}}</ref>
*''The [[Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs]]'', from an English version of [[Robert Grosseteste]]'s 13th-century Latin translation, printed from the 1693 edition with its introduction plus a modern glossary. Whitechapel: Joseph Frost Snr (1837).
However, Muggletonians had a distaste for scriptural literalism. One of the purposes of the third commission was to make clear what was previously held obscure in scripture. Their approach to scripture incorporated quite explicit interpretation and separated texts into positive and privative.