Questioning the immutability of God

Ranters was a Commonwealth era sect that wasn’t necessarily Utopian or apocalyptic as such. Some say it didn’t really exist either. I bring them up anyway, because they held some interesting beliefs that suggest the idea of change unlike any other during their time. Namely, that God wasn’t immutable.

Ranters came about around 1649. They adhered to a notion similar to that of Quakers, that Christ was present in every believer – or in all living creatures. While Quakers took this to mean that the believer existed in a sinless state when Christ was present in them, Ranters maintained that nothing could be sin while Christ was in them. This led to a behaviour that was judged amoral by their contemporaries, like cohabiting without marriage and multiple partners living in a marriage-like arrangement. Mosaic laws didn’t concern them either when they were in the state of grace.

Parliament considered Ranters to be a highly disruptive force that had to be destroyed at all costs. However, some modern historians argue that the group didn’t really exist, that they were created by the conservatives as the other to be feared. The middle view is that they were small disconnected groups without proper leaders. Whatever the true scope, they disappeared soon after the Restoration when the sects were being purged.

Even though the sect was never large or powerful, some texts are attributed to them. A Single Eye (1650) is a pamphlet by Laurence Claxton (1615-1667). In it, he questions the immutability of God. As I mentioned in an earlier post, one reason why Christians were unable to see the future different from the present was the notion that God and His word – in this case, the end of the world – were unchanging.

In the letter to the reader, Claxton states that he has seen God being worshipped in so many manners around the country that it isn’t possible He is the same for all. According to him, God “thou pretends to Worship, whether he be Infinite, or Finite; whether he be subject to passion and affection, … and whether he can be changed by thy prayers, so us to expiate a judgement, or produce a deliverance … is passionate, God is affectionate, and if either, then changeable.”

For Claxton, a god who could be one thing to one person, and completely different to another, was changeable. In a culture that believed in the immutability of God, the idea was radical. It’s also the kind of mentality that is prerequisite for the modern concept of time. I haven’t run into similar examples, however. As a unique text, it is intriguing, but doesn’t yet herald a new word view.

A Single Eye by Laurence Claxton, 1650.

Socialist apocalypse

One Commonwealth era apocalyptic Utopian sect was True Levellers that formed around Gerrard Winstanley (1609-1666) in 1649. Originally called True Levellers so that they wouldn’t be mixed with Levellers – an earlier group that aimed at social equality – they were soon given the name the Diggers.

Diggers were mostly landless and poor people. They were drawn to Winstanley’s idea of communal ownership and living, based in a verse in the Book of Acts that speaks for common ownership. Winstanley’s ideal community was to be a land-based equality, where the private ownership of land was to be abolished. This would happen peacefully, when the workforce left to farm the common land in Digger communes. The land thus freed would be divided among the landless.

Winstanley’s vision has been called a proto-Communist utopia. The new world order would be based on rural lifestyle and agrarian work. The aim was to return the humankind to the pure and sinless state it had been before the Fall, which would herald the Millennium. The society would be controlled with laws, and the task of the government would be to govern peoples’ manners.

Winstanley and his followers put the theory into practice, too, and began to farm the common lands. The land-owners reacted swiftly, and employed the army to dispel them. In the end, however, they resorted to the courts of law, where Diggers lost. Digger communities were small, scattered, and without strong leaders. Faced with the determined opposition, they dispersed and disappeared within a year.

The declaration and standard of the Levellers of England, 1649.

For the Valentine's Day: Loves Alchymie

Here’s a brief interlude for the Valentine’s Day, a poem by John Donne. It’s somewhat cynical take on love, but I like the imagery. Plenty of analyses exist about the poem. Mostly it’s seen as an analogy on how the search for spiritual love is futile. Donne doesn’t have a great notion about women in love either. They are “but, Mummy, possest”, a body without mind.

Loves Alchymie by John Donne

Some that have deeper digg’d loves Myne then I,

Say, where his centrique happinesse doth lie:

I have lov’d, and got, and told,

But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,

I should not find that hidden mysterie;

Oh, ’tis imposture all:

And as no chymique yet th’Elixar got,

But glorifies his pregnant pot,

If by the way to him befall

Some odoriferous thing, or medicinall,

So, lovers dreame a rich and long delight,

But get a winter-seeming summers night.

Our ease, our thrift, our honor, and our day,

Shall we, for this vaine Bubles shadow pay?

Ends love in this, that my man,

Can be as happy’as I can; If he can

Endure the short scorn of a Bridgegroomes play?

That loving wretch that sweares,

’Tis not the bodies marry, but the mindes,

Which he in her Angelique finds,

Would swear as justly, that he heares,

In that dayes rude hoarse minstralsey, the spheares.

Hope not for minde in women; at their best

Sweetness, and wit they’are, but Mummy, possest.

A portrait of Donne as a young man, c. 1595.

The godly utopia of the Fifth Monarchy Men

A large number of the sects that formed during the Civil War and Interregnum era were apocalyptic. They expected Christ to return and the world to end during their time. What would follow was a paradise on earth, a utopia of plenty and goodwill for all.

Some of these sects and movements didn’t settle for passively waiting for the end times to begin. They tried to actively work towards Christ’s return. Despite the Christian framework of these groups, some of them had more secular means to achieving their end. Some of them were very radical too.

One of these groups was the Fifth Monarchy Men that formed around 1649. It consisted mostly of craftsmen, journeymen, and apprentices, but some powerful men belonged to it, too, and it had some political power. For a brief time, they even had Oliver Cromwell’s ear.

For the Fifth Monarchists, Millennium was first and foremost a political and social issue. Their aim was to make England a godly nation. Its apocalyptic nature came from the belief that the timing of the Interregnum was significant, because the year 1666 – the year of the Beast – was so near. According to them, four monarchies had already reigned, as prophesied by Daniel in the Old Testament, and now it had come time for the fifth and the last.

The godly rule was a hierarchy based on the piety of people and the Mosaic Law. The good, who were called Saints or Free Men, would rule, and the bad would be their slaves. The poor would be forced to work, and they would be provided for with what the government mines earned.

The supporters of the Fifth Monarchy movement believed that it was their duty to help God to bring about the new world order – with violence, if necessary. After the Restoration, they were kept a strict eye on, as they were thought to be a threat. Indeed, in January 1661, fifty Fifth Monarchists tried to take London in the name of "King Jesus," only to be caught, hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason. Some members planned to assassinate Charles II in 1666, but that come to nothing.

The Fifth Monarchists’ failure to take London tightened the laws against all sects, making it more difficult for them to operate. Although some events like the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London made it possible for the members to still believe that the end was near, they didn’t achieve anything visible that would have supported their faith. The passionate movement eventually wore itself out, and disappeared in the 1680s.