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Details

DEAL PRINTED MUGGLETONIAN TRACT.

Synopsis

Originally written by thomas tomkinson, gent. being a copy of a manuscript left with thomas tomkinson, jun. his grandson. [second part entitled] the mystery of faith, by thomas tomkinson, copied by samuel morris baily, may 1823.

Item Description

Small 4to. 5.75 x 9.25 inches. [8] + 215 pp + [1]. Illustrated by head- and tail-piece vignettes. The Mystery of Faith has separate half-title but pagination and register continuous.

Notes

Rare Deal printed Muggletonian Tract. We have previously sold The Harmony of the Three Commissions by Tomkinson, a James May printing of 1822. 'Tomkinson's most important work from the sect's perspective was 'A Practical Discourse upon the General Epistle by Jude.' This was probably the last book Tomkinson wrote and he did so at the request of William Hall, a Derbyshire Muggletonian. Although only a short work of 25 verses, the Epistle of Jude was of disproportionate significance to Muggletonians. Its darkly poetic language seemed to give scriptural support to important Muggletonian ideas.' The Muggletonians were a sect founded about 1651 by Lodowicke Muggleton and John Reeve. The belief of the sect rested on the personal inspiration of the founders, who claimed to be the 'two witnesses' of Rev. 3-6. Despite the informal nature of the sect (having no ministers nor meeting houses and non-proselytizing) it continued in Kent well into the nineteenth century. Believed extinct, it was by chance discovered that at least one Muggletonian was alive at Matfield, Kent, in the mid 1970s. Muggletonian theology was mostly circulated in manuscript form among believers. Thomas Tomkinson (1631-1710) was one of the early Muggletonians. Born at Ilam, near Dovedale, Staffordshire he converted after a revelatory experience in 1662, meeting Lodowicke Muggleton in London the same year.