Muggletonians, or ‘believers in the third commission’, were the followers of Ludowicke Muggleton (1609–98) and his cousin John Reeve (1608–58), the recipients in 1651–2 of revelations for which Reeve was to be the messenger and Muggleton the mouthpiece. Their denial of the Trinity, their claim to be the two witnesses of Revelation 11, and such beliefs as that heaven's government was left to Elijah during the incarnation led to Muggleton's conviction for blasphemy in 1653–4 and again in 1677, and to the controversies with quakers reflected in William Penn's New Witnesses Proved Old Heretics (1672). Their followers survived into the 19th cent. with a reading room in London, but neither preaching nor worship except readings of the founder's writings.

Clyde Binfield

Muggletonian a member of a small Christian sect founded in England c.1651 by Lodowicke Muggleton (1609–98) and John Reeve (1608–58), who claimed to be the two witnesses mentioned in the book of Revelation (Revelations 11:3–6).