William Miller: calculator of end-times
William Miller was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, during 1782, and died in Low Hampton, in upstate New York, during 1849. Miller is remembered as the principal figure of Millerism or the Millerite movement, the Second Advent awakening, which stirred a large section of the United States a century-and-a-half ago.
But it was never Miller’s intention to establish a new religion. Indeed, it was with reluctance that he began even to speak publicly of his convictions in 1831. Within a surprisingly short time, by 1844, Millerism had reached its highest tide. One of its newspapers called The Midnight Cry was sold by the tens-of-thousands on the streets of New York. Among a number of papers full of glad expectation of the second coming of Christ was the US Signs of the Times. On March 24, 1844, the Midnight Cry suggested that as many as 1500 to 2000 public lectures were “proclaiming the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The mood of the time is conveyed clearly in some 800 letters that have been preserved from those that Miller wrote or received. The ink is now fading and the paper fragile, but the message still glows. When Rus E Price wrote to the acknowledged leader of the Advent cause on August 16, 1844, he addressed his letter to “Mr William Miller, calculator of prophetic numbers.” Two days later he wrote another letter, this time to “Mr William Miller, calculator of the ‘end.’”
Writing to Miller on October 21, 1844, Joseph Bauman addressed his letter to “Wm Miller, a leading Member of the Adventists, Buffalo, New York.” No doubt Bauman knew Miller had recently been preaching in that city close to Niagara Falls; but he suspected Miller may have returned to his farm, so he added “or Low Hampton” to the address. But he must have known that for more than a decade Miller had travelled constantly heralding his urgent message. So, to be sure that his letter reached Miller, Bauman further added: “If this should be wrong directed, then it may be sent to the publisher of the Midnight Cry , in New York, who can direct and forward it, or perhaps a post master can correct it.”
Why had Miller’s name become a household word in the United States? Not because he had been a small-town Justice of the Peace or a captain in the United States Army during the war with England, or was licensed to preach by the Baptists. Rather, it was because Miller’s entire life was orientated by a profound conviction that Jesus Christ would soon appear in power and glory.
When Miller was discharged from the army in 1815, he was scarcely a Christian, preferring to believe with his Deist friends that although God made the world, He had more or less abandoned His creation. When Miller criticised the deacons in his Baptist church for the poor way in which they read sermons, they co-opted him for the task. While reading a sermon in Isaiah 53, Miller experienced conversion and thereafter became an avid Bible student, seeking to resolve the telling arguments he had previously levelled against the Scriptures.
After two years of intense verse-by-verse Bible study with little more than the help of a Cruden’s Concordance, Miller came upon Daniel 8:14: “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed” (KJV). He linked Daniel chapter eight with chapter nine, identifying the year 457 BC as the starting point for the prophecies given in both chapters. Then he counted forward 2300 years (deriving the idea of “each day for a year” from Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6), and concluded that the “sanctuary” would be “cleansed” “about the year 1843 [further calculation by Miller’s followers showed that this date should have been 1844]. This sanctuary, he mused, must be the earth; its cleansing must imply the glorious return of Christ.
Even though these ideas were established in Miller’s mind during 1818, it wasn’t until 1831 that he cautiously began to speak and write about them. By 1833 the Baptists were so impressed with the results that they licensed him to preach. Even though he supported himself by farming, Miller delivered some 4500 lectures in 500 towns to an estimated half-million people during the first 12 years of his ministry.
optimism of a new age
Looking back a century-and-a-half to the heyday of Millerism, a number of facts are evident.
First, Miller and his associates focused on a crucial yet often neglected theme in Scripture—the second coming of Christ. The Old Testament is heavy with promise of the first advent; the New Testament rejoices in the arrival of the Messiah and emphasises that His second advent will consummate the process of salvation. Millerism struck this often-neglected chord.
Second, Millerism was born and grew rapidly to its maturity in an age of reform. The doctrinal reforms of Miller and his associates coincided with a plethora of other reforms. Temperance movements, anti-slavery societies, educational and health reform efforts flourished. The US at the time seemed particularly responsive to the need for a fresh look at Christian thought and practice as well.
Third, the enthusiasm generated by the Millerites caught the attention of a wide cross-section of Christians and non-Christians. Hundreds of Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalist and other clergy joined forces with Miller to herald “the Advent near,” and their voices were reinforced by a much larger number of “public lectures”—from ordinary people drawn from all walks of life. Grog shops were closed, infidels were converted, the attention of whole communities was arrested by conferences and camp-meetings that proclaimed “the blessed hope” of seeing Jesus soon.
facing disappointment
From our vantage point in time, it’s now obvious there was an important error in Millerism: Jesus did not come at the designated time. Hiram Edson, an earnest farmer-turned-preacher living in Port Gibson, New York, recounted the poignancy of the experience that ever after would be known as “The Great Disappointment.”
“Our expectations were raised high, and thus we looked for our coming Lord until the clock tolled 12 at midnight. The day had then passed and our disappointment became a certainty. Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept, and wept, till the day dawn.”
This event led Edson and his associates to question their experience. Was there no God? No heaven? Or was there a flaw in their prophetic understanding? As early as the morning after the Great Disappointment the idea flashed into Edson’s mind that at the ending of the 2300 days Jesus began a new section of His redemptive work, and that His literal coming in power and glory would not occur until that work was completed.
Intense Bible study followed for Edson and his associates, especially Dr F B Hahn and a young man, Owen Crosier. The group came to believe that the “sanctuary” of Daniel 8:14 was that spoken of in Hebrews 8:1—a heavenly sanctuary. They began to explore the idea that Christ’s ministry was typified by the Jewish sanctuary service with its two phases, one daily, the other, yearly. They came to believe that from His ascension until 1844—the time for the sanctuary to be cleansed—Jesus had engaged in a “daily” ministry; from the end of the 2300 years He would engage in the “yearly” or Day of Atonement ministry (see Leviticus 16).
In a long article on the topic, Crosier argued that the daily ministry was for the forgiveness of sins, the yearly for the blotting out of sins. More than a decade later, a more apt name would be found for Christ’s yearly ministry: “The Investigative Judgment.” Following the lead of Hahn and Crosier, other early Adventists, as they were called, developed their understanding of Daniel 8:14 and continued to point to the date 1844 as marking the beginning of a pre-second-advent judgment, symbolised by the “cleansing” of the heavenly sanctuary. They called this judgment the “investigative judgment” to distinguish it from the “executive judgment,” which begins at the coming of Jesus (see Revelation 20:11-15).*
The group of disappointed Millerites who were exploring this new concept of the sanctuary shared their findings with others, people who were themselves fostering non-traditional ideas. One of these groups was exploring death and its aftermath, and concluding that the righteous dead “sleep” until the resurrection, rather than entering heaven (or hell) at the moment of death.
Another group was declaring the Sabbath to be Saturday, the seventh day of the week, rather than Sunday, the first. Yet others were enthused by the Bible’s teaching of spiritual gifts.
right or wrong?
How right were the Millerites? Since they relied on Scripture, they chose the right basis for reform, affirming the relevance of Bible prophecy, seeking earnestly to walk in the light of that “more sure word.” They proclaimed a neglected but needed truth, the second coming of Christ. They invited people to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, declaring that being found in Him was the only way to be ready for His coming. They declared that the climax of the ages would come by divine intervention, not through human achievement. They showed that Christ’s coming precedes, indeed, it initiates the promised 1000 years (the Millennium) of Revelation 20. Andthey discerned the radical change that the cross of Christ brought to prophetic interpretation, declaring that the Old Testament prophecies now belong to all Christians rather than to literal Israel.
Miller and his movement thus built on the solid achievements of earlier Reformers, stalwarts like Martin Luther, John Knox and John Wesley. They called their generation to consider the important truth that the plan of salvation will not be consummated until “the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).
In so doing they asked the question posed by the apostle Peter: “Since everything will be destroyed . . . what kind of people ought you to be?” (2 Peter 3:11). More than that, even the bitterness of their disappointment became the catalyst for constructive change: Millerites would find a new identity and mission as Seventh-day Adventists.
* Although this understanding of Daniel 8:14 has been challenged by some, with only minor modification the belief remains the viewpoint of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
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