John Saddington (c.1634?–1679) was a Muggletonian writer and London sugar merchant, originally from Arnesby in Leicestershire. There is a village called Saddington in Leicestershire.
Spiritual journey John Saddington was popularly known as Saddington the Tallhe features as such in one of the Muggletonian songs. Divine songs of the Muggletonians Clerkenwell: Joseph Frost 1829 and was noted for his striking good looks. He saysJohn Saddington A Prospective-glass for Saints and Sinners first published 1673. Reprinted Deal: J. May (1823) General Epistle (first introduction of two, not paginated) that as a child he delved into books at every opportunity. His family were of the Presbyterian faith. He became unsettled when, as an eighteen-year-old, he read a book called A sword troubled, or, The Terror of Tythes in which ministers who took tithes were criticised as "oppressors of the poor and robbers of God." He says, "I was lost in myself as these ministers in whom I put my trust were such as took tythes." After that, "the assurance of my salvation was all I looked after." Yet neither Presbyterian, Independent nor Baptist satisfied him. He admits he would have been persuaded by the Quakers if he had heard of them first but he later rejected them because "they will not acknowledge the resurrection of the body of Christ."
He first heard of John Reeve and Lodowicke Muggleton from an apprentice friend who had met the pair in Bridewell gaol.This would have been 1653 or 1654. John Reeve and Lodowicke Muggleton were serving six months under the Blasphemy Act 1650. He borrowed a copy of John Reeve's A Transcendent Spirituall Treatise and was convinced.
He seems to have been one of the first adherents to the Muggletonian faith and, as a consequence, liked to style himself "the eldest son of the Commission of the Spirit" and "An Ancient Believer". Certainly, he was one of the most loyal of believers and spoke out on behalf of Muggleton's point of view during the rebellion of 'The Nine Assertions', engineered by William Medgate, a London scrivener, from January 1671. Muggleton was unable to defend himself as he was on the run from an arrest warrant and living in hiding amongst the watermen of Wapping.
The revolt was about Nine Assertions, said by William Medgate to have been made by Lodowicke Muggleton, and which were thought to deviate from the true prophecy revealed to John Reeve. Reeve and Muggleton were believed to be the Two Last Witnesses mentioned in the Book of Revelation 11:3 but only Reeve had received his commission from the voice of God. So it was always arguable whether there were two equal prophets or only one fully commissioned prophet, John Reeve. The nine assertions might be thought to boil down to only one (that's certainly the way Muggleton looked at it) which concerned Muggleton's insistence that God takes no notice of everyday goings-on in this world. This idea is not found explicitly in any of John Reeve's writings. In fact, everything John Reeve said pointed in the opposite direction. "Nothing comes by chance or fortune, but all through or by the providential choice of the most high."William Lamont The Last Witnesses Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing (2006) p. 131 Muggleton was quite candid about the situation. He said that although John Reeve was generally infallible in matters of doctrine, he was only human and could sometimes get things confused. This was one of those things and John Reeve had accepted Muggleton's correction. But we only have Muggleton's word for that.
The idea about immediate notice (or the lack of it) was not originally Muggleton's. It was first written about by Laurence Clarkson. It perhaps strengthened Muggleton's hand that someone who might have been expected to follow John Reeve was so emphatically in-line with Muggleton on the issue. And it is why John Saddington started to write books.
"The Articles of True Faith" John Saddington wrote six works in all; four circulated in manuscript and two were printed.
The Articles of True Faith is just a pamphlet, first published in 1675, said to have been printed anew in 1830no copies of the 1830 edition seem to be known but, since the 1880 version is said to be a reprint and the text is in modern English, it seems likely that an edition was at least prepared for the press in 1830. and definitely reprinted in 1880.John Saddington The Articles of True Faith Walthamstow: Isaac Frost Jnr and Mrs Sarah Ann Huntley (1880) It is also reproduced in T. L. Underwood The Acts of the Witnesses New York: Oxford University Press (1999) at p. 171 John Saddington's seventeenth century text must have been highly valued by late-Victorian Muggletonians if they wanted to have it in print in preference to their own collective effort The Faith and Practice of the Muggletonians written in 1870 but not, as yet, published.Professor William M. Lamont attributes the 1870 text to the work of John Dimock Aspland (1816–1877). Lamont Last Witnesses p. 2
The work is written in the style of a personal credo with each of 48 articles beginning "I do believe that ... " The dedication to the work says it is written to confound and disprove all despisers that say, firstly, "We do not know what we believe" and secondly, that the Muggletonians "do own neither God nor devil." The first charge, that of lacking internal consistency, was a commonplace of sectarian disputes. Quakers taunted Muggletonians with it and Lodowicke Muggleton threw it back at any "ignorant spatter-brained Quaker" who crossed pens with him.Lodowicke Muggleton An answer to William Penn (1673) reprinted Clerkenwell: E. Brown (1835) The hugely abusive style of the exchange of pamphlets seems to derive entirely from a personal trait of Lodowicke Muggleton, not emulated by his followers. It is fair to say that Quakers such as Isaac Pennington, William Penn and George Fox, paid him back as good as he gave. John Reeve's correspondence with Isaac Pennington is far more measured and persuasive and, from a Muggletonian perspective, the last word had already been written long before in Laurence Clarkson's definitive The Quakers Downfall (1659).
The charge of not acknowledging God or devil was really an attempt to smear Muggletonians as unreconstructed Ranters. It is true Muggletonians do not accept the idea of the devil as a distinct personality but as a 'seed' present, to a greater or lesser extent, in all human beings. Muggletonians could only be said not to own a God in the sense that they regarded the man Christ Jesus as being the Holy One of Israel. Again, this formula was not original to Muggleton. It had appeared in Tobias Crisp's Christ alone exalted (1643).
For the most part, John Saddington does not say anything in forty eight articles which Lodowicke Muggleton had not said in six principles.These six principles are 1) that there is no God but the glorified Man Christ Jesus, 2) there is no devil but the unclean Reason of men, 3) Heaven is an infinite abode of light above and beyond the stars, 4) the place of Hell will be this earth when sun, moon and stars are extinguished, 5) Angels are the only beings of Pure Reason, 6) the Soul dies with the body and will be raised with it. George Charles Williamson Lodowick Muggleton London: Chiswick Press (1919) A God exists beyond the stars. He is a glorious body, in form like a man from all eternity. He created the angels from stardust, like to himself in form but not in nature. Angelic satisfaction was withheld from one angel who fell to earth as the serpent tempter. Dust and water existed for eternity and creation gave them form. Thus was Adam created by breath of life and by the word. Yet, John Saddington comes into his own in two places.
In articles 33 to 38, he sets out the Muggletonian belief that all human bodies and all souls are mortal and must die, eventually to face either a glorious resurrection or a second death when time is brought to an end. As a result, the body and soul of the man Christ Jesus died and lay in the grave just like any other man except that his flesh was incorruptible for the man had been sinless. Article 36 says, "I do believe that Christ was a quickening spirit and that He did quicken out of death to life by His own power." As a result, says article 34, "I do believe that no other blood but the blood of the eternal God could wash away the sins of the elect." But only the elect. At the end of time, the candidates for resurrection will be separated as the sheep and the goats.
In articles 19 to 25, John Saddington discusses the doctrine of the two seeds; the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Article 22 says, "I do believe that the seed of the woman is the generation of faithful people, which proceed from the loins of the blessed Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God." Thus, article 25 concludes, "I do believe that the difference and opposition which ariseth between believers and unbelievers concerning their faith in God is that enmity which God said he would put between the serpent and the woman and between his seed and her seed."
But was Saddington's contribution really helpful? It is only his personal statement of belief. To the extent that these beliefs are co-extensive with the six principles of Muggletonian belief, then they are redundant. To the extent they go beyond them, they are controversial and any believer is free to accept or reject as he or she pleases. This issue becomes important in his other, much more substantial, published work, A Prospective-glass for Saints and Sinners where he enlarges upon the status of John Reeve and Lodowicke Muggleton.
"A Prospective-glass for Saints and Sinners"
Purposes of the book This book can be seen in two ways which are by no means mutually exclusive. Firstly, it is one of the few Muggletonian books addressed to non-believers. (If one accepts the view that Muggletonians had principled objections to evangelism, then Saddington's book should never have existed at all.) Saddington is well equipped to write a popular book. He has a bright, journalistic style which is appealing and, above all, he couches his comments in the everyday experience of urban tradesmen and housewives and does not begin from bible doctrine. The main text is preceded by two introductions, one to his fellow believers and one, a 'General Epistle', addressed to the 'Courteous Reader'. Secondly, it is in the address to the believers that he puts the frequently asked question 'why did I write this book?' but he never truly answers himself. It is as if he wants the Muggletonian reader to stop, consider, then tease out a deeper meaning of his or her own. When he does finally answer a question, it is the different one of why he has not written the book earlier. His reasons are that he saw little need to write whilst there was still a live prophet amongst them and because, if he wrote, he had to make reference to his own experience which he felt reluctant to do. Just what this experience was that might make his fellow believers question if he were a fit and proper person to exhort them to righteousness, he naturally doesn't say. Clearly, if we don't know, we don't need to know. And we don't. So time has healed his wound. But the prophet Muggleton was still alive when Saddington wrote his book, so what had really changed?
Context of the book