Lodowicke Muggleton - 1650: Ranters and Prophecy

1650: Ranters and Prophecy

"It came to pass in the year 1650, I heard of several prophets and prophetess that were about the streets and declared the Day of the Lord, and many other wonderful things." Notable were John Robins and Thomas Tany (Muggleton calls him John Tannye). Muggleton says of Robins that he regarded himself as God come to judge the quick and the dead and, as such, had resurrected and redeemed Cain and Judas Iscariot as well as resurrecting Jeremiah and many of the Old Testament prophets. "I have had nine or ten of them at my house at a time," reports Muggleton, nonchalantly. The prophets claimed power to damn any that opposed them. Robins displayed considerable talents as a magus; presenting the appearance of angels, burning shining lights, half-moons and stars in chambers, thick darkness with his head in a flame of fire and his person riding on the wings of the wind. Understandably, such experiences left a lasting impression on Muggleton. "I do not speak this from hearsay of others," says Muggleton in his autobiography, "but from a perfect knowledge which I have seen and heard." Yet he asserts he was never an active follower of either man. "Yet was I quiet and still and heard what was said and done and spake against nothing."

Muggleton makes clear he believed Robins guilty of self-deification and of indulging in dangerous powers when he had no grounds to consider them of divine origin. Thus Robins was a false prophet with lying signs. Yet, writing in old age, Muggleton still appreciates Robins' efficacy. Robins' curses were true for all eternity because his opponents, when they jeered at him, had no idea whether he was sent from God or not and "would have said as much to the true Christ as they did to him." Muggleton concluded that more sober persons, in whom faith predominated, "would have been preserved from speaking evil of things they knew not."