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Adventist / Millerite

What is known as the "Advent movement" originated with William Miller, who was born at Pittsfield, Mass., February 15, 1782, and died in Low Hampton, N. Y., December 20, 1849. He bore a good reputation as a farmer and citizen, serving under a captain's commission in the war of 1812, and was a diligent student and a great reader, although he had but a common school education. For some years he was an avowed Deist, but, as he said, "found no spiritual rest," until in 1816 he was converted and united with the Baptists. After his conversion, as objections to the authenticity and inspiration of the Scriptures were pressed upon him in the same way that he had formerly pressed them upon others, he determined to devote himself to a careful study of the Bible, laying aside commentaries and using the marginal references and Cruden's Con-: cordance as his only helps. As a result of this study he became satisfied that the Bible is its own interpreter, and arrived at the conviction that it is "a system of revealed truths, so clearly and simph' given that the 'wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein.'"

At that time very little was heard from pulpit or press respecting the second coming of Christ, the general impression being that it must be preceded by the conversion of the world and the millennium, a long period of universal holiness and peace. As Mr. Miller studied the prophetic portions of the Bible, however, he became convinced that the doctrine of the world's conversion was unscriptural; that not only the parable of the wheat and the tares, as explained by Christ in Matthew xiii, 24-30, 36-43, but many other passages, teach the coexistenceof Christianity and antiChristianity while the gospel age lasts. As the period of a thousand years, during which Satan is bound, mentioned in Revelation xx, and from which the conception of the millennium is derived, lies between the first resurrection (Rev. xx, 4-6), which he understood to include all of the redeemed, and that of "the rest of the dead" (Rev. xx, 5), his conclusion was that the coming of Christ in person, power, and glory must be premillennial. He believed that at this coming there would be a resurrection of all the dead in Christ, who, together with all the redeemed then alive, would be "caught up to meet the Lord in the air;" that the wicked would then be judged, and the present heavens and earth dissolved by fire, to be followed by their regeneration as the inheritance of the redeemed, involving the glorious, immortal, and personal reign of Christ and all His saints.

As a result of his study of prophetic chronology, he believed not only that the Advent was at hand, but that its date might be fixed with some definiteness. Taking the more or less generally accepted view that the "days" of prophecy symbolize years, he was led to the conclusion that the 2,300 days referred to in Daniel viii, 13, 14, the beginning of which he dated from the commandment to restore Jerusalem, given in 457 B. C. (Daniel ix, 25), and the 1,335 days of the same prophet (xii, 12), which he took to constitute the latter part of the 2,300 days, would end coincidently in or about the year 1843. The cleansing of the sanctuary, which was to take place at the close of the 2,300 days (Daniel viii, 14), he understood to mean the cleansing of the earth at the second coming of Christ, which, as a result of his computations, he confidently expected would occur some time between March 21, 1843, and March 21. 1844, the period corresponding to the Jewish year.

The history of the Adventists as a separate religious body distinct from other denominations properly begins with the Albany conference of 1845. In course of time various opinions developed in regard to the nature of the Advent and particularly in regard to the future life, ultimately resulting in the formation of a number of independent Adventist bodies, which, however, agree in the belief that the Advent itself is to be personal and premillennial, and is near at hand, and in their recognition of the influence of Mr. Miller and those immediately associated with him.