unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two
weeks,”—namely, sixty-nine weeks, or 483 years. The decree of Artaxerxes
went into effect in the autumn of B.C. 457. From this date, 483 years
extend to the autumn of A.D. 27.(541) At that time this prophecy was
fulfilled. The word “Messiah” signifies “the Anointed One.” In the autumn
of A.D. 27, Christ was baptized by John, and received the anointing of the
Spirit. The apostle Peter testifies that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Ghost and with power.”(542) And the Saviour Himself
declared, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me
to preach the gospel to the poor.”(543) After His baptism He went into
Galilee, “preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, _The
time_ is fulfilled.”(544)
“And He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week.” The “week”
here brought to view is the last one of the seventy; it is the last seven
years of the period allotted especially to the Jews. During this time,
extending from A.D. 27 to A.D. 34, Christ, at first in person and
afterward by His disciples, extended the gospel invitation especially to
the Jews. As the apostles went forth with the good tidings of the kingdom,
the Saviour’s direction was, “Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and
into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel.”(545)
“In the midst of the week He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to
cease.” In A.D. 31, three and a half years after His baptism, our Lord was
crucified. With the great sacrifice offered upon Calvary, ended that
system of offerings which for four thousand years had pointed forward to
the Lamb of God. Type had met antitype, and all the sacrifices and
oblations of the ceremonial system were there to cease.
The seventy weeks, or 490 years, especially allotted to the Jews, ended,
as we have seen, in A.D. 34. At that time, through the action of the
Jewish Sanhedrim, the nation sealed its rejection of the gospel by the
martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution of the followers of Christ. Then
the message of salvation, no longer restricted to the chosen people, was
given to the world. The disciples, forced by persecution to flee from
Jerusalem, “went everywhere preaching the Word.” “Philip went down to the
city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them.” Peter, divinely guided,
opened the gospel to the centurion of Cæsarea, the God-fearing Cornelius;
and the ardent Paul, won to the faith of Christ, was commissioned to carry
the glad tidings “far hence unto the Gentiles.”(546)
Thus far every specification of the prophecies is strikingly fulfilled,
and the beginning of the seventy weeks is fixed beyond question at B.C.
457, and their expiration in A.D. 34. From this data there is no
difficulty in finding the termination of the 2300 days. The seventy
weeks—490 days—having been cut off from the 2300, there were 1810 days
remaining. After the end of 490 days, the 1810 days were still to be
fulfilled. From A.D. 34, 1810 years extend to 1844. Consequently the 2300
days of Dan. 8:14 terminate in 1844. At the expiration of this great
prophetic period, upon the testimony of the angel of God, “the sanctuary
shall be cleansed.” Thus the time of the cleansing of the sanctuary—which
was almost universally believed to take place at the second advent—was
definitely pointed out.
Miller and his associates at first believed that the 2300 days would
terminate in the _spring_ of 1844, whereas the prophecy points to the
_autumn_ of that year.(547) The misapprehension of this point brought
disappointment and perplexity to those who had fixed upon the earlier date
as the time of the Lord’s coming. But this did not in the least affect the
strength of the argument showing that the 2300 days terminated in the year
1844, and that the great event represented by the cleansing of the
sanctuary must then take place.
Entering upon the study of the Scriptures as he had done, in order to
prove that they were a revelation from God, Miller had not, at the outset,
the slightest expectation of reaching the conclusion at which he had now
arrived. He himself could hardly credit the results of his investigation.
But the Scripture evidence was too clear and forcible to be set aside.
He had devoted two years to the study of the Bible, when, in 1818, he
reached the solemn conviction that in about twenty-five years Christ would
appear for the redemption of His people. “I need not speak,” says Miller,
“of the joy that filled my heart in view of the delightful prospect, nor
of the ardent longings of my soul for a participation in the joys of the
redeemed. The Bible was now to me a new book. It was indeed a feast of
reason; all that was dark, mystical, or obscure to me in its teachings,
had been dissipated from my mind before the clear light that now dawned
from its sacred pages; and oh, how bright and glorious the truth appeared!
All the contradictions and inconsistencies I had before found in the Word
were gone; and although there were many portions of which I was not
satisfied I had a full understanding, yet so much light had emanated from
it to the illumination of my before darkened mind, that I felt a delight
in studying the Scripture which I had not before supposed could be derived
from its teachings.”(548)
“With the solemn conviction that such momentous events were predicted in
the Scriptures to be fulfilled in so short a space of time, the question
came home to me with mighty power regarding my duty to the world, in view
of the evidence that had affected my own mind.”(549) He could not but feel
that it was his duty to impart to others the light which he had received.
He expected to encounter opposition from the ungodly, but was confident
that all Christians would rejoice in the hope of meeting the Saviour whom
they professed to love. His only fear was, that in their great joy at the
prospect of glorious deliverance, so soon to be consummated, many would
receive the doctrine without sufficiently examining the Scriptures in
demonstration of its truth. He therefore hesitated to present it, lest he
should be in error, and be the means of misleading others. He was thus led
to review the evidences in support of the conclusions at which he had
arrived, and to consider carefully every difficulty which presented itself
to his mind. He found that objections vanished before the light of God’s
word, as mist before the rays of the sun. Five years spent thus, left him
fully convinced of the correctness of his position.
And now the duty of making known to others what he believed to be so
clearly taught in the Scriptures, urged itself with new force upon him.
“When I was about my business,” he said, “it was continually ringing in my
ears, ‘Go and tell the world of their danger.’ This text was constantly
occurring to me: ‘When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt
surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that
wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at
thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from
it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou
hast delivered thy soul.’(550) I felt that if the wicked could be
effectually warned, multitudes of them would repent; and that if they were
not warned, their blood might be required at my hand.”(551)
He began to present his views in private as he had opportunity, praying
that some minister might feel their force and devote himself to their
promulgation. But he could not banish the conviction that he had a
personal duty to perform in giving the warning. The words were ever
recurring to his mind, “Go and tell it to the world; their blood will I
require at thy hand.” For nine years he waited, the burden still pressing
upon his soul, until in 1831 he for the first time publicly gave the
reasons of his faith.
As Elisha was called from following his oxen in the field, to receive the
mantle of consecration to the prophetic office, so was William Miller
called to leave his plow, and open to the people the mysteries of the
kingdom of God. With trembling he entered upon his work, leading his
hearers down, step by step, through the prophetic periods to the second
appearing of Christ. With every effort he gained strength and courage as
he saw the wide-spread interest excited by his words.
It was only at the solicitation of his brethren, in whose words he heard
the call of God, that Miller consented to present his views in public. He
was now fifty years of age, unaccustomed to public speaking, and burdened
with a sense of unfitness for the work before him. But from the first his
labors were blessed in a remarkable manner to the salvation of souls. His
first lecture was followed by a religious awakening in which thirteen
entire families, with the exception of two persons, were converted. He was
immediately urged to speak in other places, and in nearly every place his
labor resulted in a revival of the work of God. Sinners were converted,
Christians were roused to greater consecration, and deists and infidels
were led to acknowledge the truth of the Bible and the Christian religion.
The testimony of those among whom he labored was, “A class of minds are
reached by him not within the influence of other men.”(552) His preaching
was calculated to arouse the public mind to the great things of religion,
and to check the growing worldliness and sensuality of the age.
In nearly every town there were scores, in some, hundreds, converted as
the result of his preaching. In many places Protestant churches of nearly
all denominations were thrown open to him; and the invitations to labor
usually came from the ministers of the several congregations. It was his
invariable rule not to labor in any place to which he had not been
invited, yet he soon found himself unable to comply with half the requests
that poured in upon him.
Many who did not accept his views as to the exact time of the second
advent, were convinced of the certainty and nearness of Christ’s coming
and their need of preparation. In some of the large cities his work
produced a marked impression. Liquor-dealers abandoned the traffic, and
turned their shops into meeting-rooms; gambling dens were broken up;
infidels, deists, Universalists, and even the most abandoned profligates
were reformed, some of whom had not entered a house of worship for years.
Prayer-meetings were established by the various denominations, in
different quarters, at almost every hour, business men assembling at
midday for prayer and praise. There was no extravagant excitement, but an
almost universal solemnity on the minds of the people. His work, like that
of the early Reformers, tended rather to convince the understanding and
arouse the conscience than merely to excite the emotions.
In 1833 Miller received a license to preach, from the Baptist Church, of
which he was a member. A large number of the ministers of his denomination
also approved his work, and it was with their formal sanction that he
continued his labors. He traveled and preached unceasingly, though his
personal labors were confined principally to the New England and Middle
States. For several years his expenses were met wholly from his own
private purse, and he never afterward received enough to meet the expense
of travel to the places where he was invited. Thus his public labors, so
far from being a pecuniary benefit, were a heavy tax upon his property,
which gradually diminished during this period of his life. He was the
father of a large family, but as they were all frugal and industrious, his
farm sufficed for their maintenance as well as his own.
In 1833, two years after Miller began to present in public the evidences
of Christ’s soon coming, the last of the signs appeared which were
promised by the Saviour as tokens of His second advent. Said Jesus, “The
stars shall fall from heaven”(553) And John in the Revelation declared, as
he beheld in vision the scenes that should herald the day of God, “The
stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her
untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.”(554) This prophecy
received a striking and impressive fulfilment in the great meteoric shower
of November 13, 1833. That was the most extensive and wonderful display of
falling stars which has ever been recorded; “the whole firmament, over all
the United States, being then, for hours, in fiery commotion! No celestial
phenomenon has ever occurred in this country, since its first settlement,
which was viewed with such intense admiration by one class in the
community, or with so much dread and alarm by another.” “Its sublimity and
awful beauty still linger in many minds.... Never did rain fall much
thicker than the meteors fell toward the earth; east, west, north, and
south, it was the same. In a word, the whole heavens seemed in motion....
The display, as described in Professor Silliman’s Journal, was seen all
over North America.... From two o’clock until broad daylight, the sky
being perfectly serene and cloudless, an incessant play of dazzlingly
brilliant luminosities was kept up in the whole heavens.”(555)
“No language, indeed, can come up to the splendor of that magnificent
display; ... no one who did not witness it can form an adequate conception
of its glory. It seemed as if the whole starry heavens had congregated at
one point near the zenith, and were simultaneously shooting forth, with
the velocity of lightning, to every part of the horizon; and yet they were
not exhausted—thousands swiftly followed in the tracks of thousands, as if
created for the occasion.”(556) “A more correct picture of a fig-tree
casting its figs when blown by a mighty wind, it was not possible to
behold.”(557)
In the New York _Journal of Commerce_ of Nov. 14, 1833, appeared a long
article regarding this wonderful phenomenon, containing this statement:
“No philosopher or scholar has told or recorded an event, I suppose, like
that of yesterday morning. A prophet eighteen hundred years ago foretold
it exactly, if we will be at the trouble of understanding stars falling to
mean falling stars, ... in the only sense in which it is possible to be
literally true.”
Thus was displayed the last of those signs of His coming, concerning which
Jesus bade His disciples, “When ye shall see all these things, _know_ that
it is near, even at the doors.”(558) After these signs, John beheld, as
the great event next impending, the heavens departing as a scroll, while
the earth quaked, mountains and islands removed out of their places, and
the wicked in terror sought to flee from the presence of the Son of
man.(559)
Many who witnessed the falling of the stars, looked upon it as a herald of
the coming judgment,—“an awful type, a sure forerunner, a merciful sign,
of that great and dreadful day.” Thus the attention of the people was
directed to the fulfilment of prophecy, and many were led to give heed to
the warning of the second advent.
In the year 1840, another remarkable fulfilment of prophecy excited
wide-spread interest. Two years before, Josiah Litch, one of the leading
ministers preaching the second advent, published an exposition of
Revelation 9, predicting the fall of the Ottoman empire. According to his
calculations, this power was to be overthrown “in A.D. 1840, sometime in
the month of August;” and only a few days previous to its accomplishment
he wrote: “Allowing the first period, 150 years, to have been exactly
fulfilled before Deacozes ascended the throne by permission of the Turks,
and that the 391 years, fifteen days, commenced at the close of the first
period, it will end on the 11th of August, 1840, when the Ottoman power in
Constantinople may be expected to be broken. And this, I believe, will be
found to be the case.”(560)
At the very time specified, Turkey, through her ambassadors, accepted the
protection of the allied powers of Europe, and thus placed herself under
the control of Christian nations. The event exactly fulfilled the
prediction.(561) When it became known, multitudes were convinced of the
correctness of the principles of prophetic interpretation adopted by
Miller and his associates, and a wonderful impetus was given to the Advent
Movement. Men of learning and position united with Miller, both in
preaching and publishing his views, and from 1840 to 1844 the work rapidly
extended.
William Miller possessed strong mental powers, disciplined by thought and
study; and he added to these the wisdom of heaven, by connecting himself
with the Source of wisdom. He was a man of sterling worth, who could not
but command respect and esteem wherever integrity of character and moral
excellence were valued. Uniting true kindness of heart with Christian
humility and the power of self-control, he was attentive and affable to
all, ready to listen to the opinions of others, and to weigh their
arguments. Without passion or excitement, he tested all theories and
doctrines by the word of God; and his sound reasoning, and thorough
knowledge of the Scriptures, enabled him to refute error and expose
falsehood.
Yet he did not prosecute his work without bitter opposition. As with
earlier Reformers, the truths which he presented were not received with
favor by popular religious teachers. As these could not maintain their
position by the Scriptures, they were driven to resort to the sayings and
doctrines of men, to the traditions of the Fathers. But the word of God
was the only testimony accepted by the preachers of the advent truth. “The
Bible, and the Bible only,” was their watchword. The lack of Scripture
argument on the part of their opponents was supplied by ridicule and
scoffing. Time, means, and talents were employed in maligning those whose
only offense was that they looked with joy for the return of their Lord,
and were striving to live holy lives, and to exhort others to prepare for
His appearing.
Earnest were the efforts put forth to draw away the minds of the people
from the subject of the second advent. It was made to appear a sin,
something of which men should be ashamed, to study the prophecies which
relate to the coming of Christ and the end of the world. Thus the popular
ministry undermined faith in the word of God. Their teaching made men
infidels, and many took license to walk after their own ungodly lusts.
Then the authors of the evil charged it all upon Adventists.
While drawing crowded houses of intelligent and attentive hearers,
Miller’s name was seldom mentioned by the religious press except by way of
ridicule or denunciation. The careless and ungodly, emboldened by the
position of religious teachers, resorted to opprobrious epithets, to base
and blasphemous witticisms, in their efforts to heap contumely upon him
and his work. The gray-headed man who had left a comfortable home to
travel at his own expense from city to city, from town to town, toiling
unceasingly to bear to the world the solemn warning of the judgment near,
was sneeringly denounced as a fanatic, a liar, a speculating knave.
The ridicule, falsehood, and abuse heaped upon him called forth indignant
remonstrance, even from the secular press. “To treat a subject of such
overwhelming majesty and fearful consequences,” with lightness and
ribaldry, was declared by worldly men to be “not merely to sport with the
feelings of its propagators and advocates,” but “to make a jest of the day
of judgment, to scoff at the Deity Himself, and contemn the terrors of His
judgment-bar.”(562)
The instigator of all evil sought not only to counteract the effect of the
advent message, but to destroy the messenger himself. Miller made a
practical application of Scripture truth to the hearts of his hearers,
reproving their sins and disturbing their self-satisfaction, and his plain
and cutting words aroused their enmity. The opposition manifested by
church-members toward his message, emboldened the baser classes to go to
greater lengths; and enemies plotted to take his life as he should leave
the place of meeting. But holy angels were in the throng, and one of
these, in the form of a man, took the arm of this servant of the Lord, and
led him in safety from the angry mob. His work was not yet done, and Satan
and his emissaries were disappointed in their purpose.
Despite all opposition, the interest in the Advent Movement had continued
to increase. From scores and hundreds, the congregations had grown to as
many thousands. Large accessions had been made to the various churches,
but after a time the spirit of opposition was manifested even against
these converts, and the churches began to take disciplinary steps with
those who had embraced Miller’s views. This action called forth a response
from his pen, in an address to Christians of all denominations, urging
that if his doctrines were false, he should be shown his error from the
Scriptures.
“What have we believed,” he said, “that we have not been commanded to
believe by the word of God, which you yourselves allow is the rule, and
only rule, of our faith and practice? What have we done that should call
down such virulent denunciations against us from pulpit and press, and
give you just cause to exclude us [Adventists] from your churches and
fellowship?” “If we are wrong, pray show us wherein consists our wrong.
Show us from the word of God that we are in error; we have had ridicule
enough; that can never convince us that we are in the wrong; the word of
God alone can change our views. Our conclusions have been formed
deliberately and prayerfully, as we have seen the evidence in the
Scriptures.”(563)
From age to age the warnings which God has sent to the world by His
servants have been received with like incredulity and unbelief. When the
iniquity of the antediluvians moved Him to bring a flood of waters upon
the earth, He first made known to them His purpose, that they might have
opportunity to turn from their evil ways. For a hundred and twenty years
was sounded in their ears the warning to repent, lest the wrath of God be
manifested in their destruction. But the message seemed to them an idle
tale, and they believed it not. Emboldened in their wickedness, they
mocked the messenger of God, made light of his entreaties, and even
accused him of presumption. How dare one man stand up against all the
great men of the earth? If Noah’s message were true, why did not all the
world see it and believe it? One man’s assertion against the wisdom of
thousands! They would not credit the warning, nor would they seek shelter
in the ark.
Scoffers pointed to the things of nature,—to the unvarying succession of
the seasons, to the blue skies that had never poured out rain, to the
green fields refreshed by the soft dews of night,—and they cried out,
“Doth he not speak parables?” In contempt they declared the preacher of
righteousness to be a wild enthusiast; and they went on, more eager in
their pursuit of pleasure, more intent upon their evil ways, than ever
before. But their unbelief did not hinder the predicted event. God bore
long with their wickedness, giving them ample opportunity for repentance;
but at the appointed time His judgments were visited upon the rejecters of
His mercy.
Christ declares that there will exist similar unbelief concerning His
second coming. As the people of Noah’s day “knew not until the flood came,
and took them all away; so,” in the words of our Saviour, “shall also the
coming of the Son of man be.”(564) When the professed people of God are
uniting with the world, living as they live, and joining with them in
forbidden pleasure; when the luxury of the world becomes the luxury of the
church; when the marriage bells are chiming, and all are looking forward
to many years of worldly prosperity,—then, suddenly as the lightning
flashes from the heavens, will come the end of their bright visions and
delusive hopes.
As God sent His servant to warn the world of the coming flood, so He sent
chosen messengers to make known the nearness of the final judgment. And as
Noah’s contemporaries laughed to scorn the predictions of the preacher of
righteousness, so in Miller’s day many, even of the professed people of
God, scoffed at the words of warning.