William Miller (preacher)

William Miller (February 15, 1782 – December 20, 1849) was an American Baptist preacher who is credited with beginning the mid-19th-century
William Miller
North American religious movement known as Millerism. After his proclamation of the Second Coming did not occur as expected in the 1840s,
new heirs of his message emerged, including the Advent Christians (1860), the Seventh-day Adventists (1863) and other Adventist movements.

Contents
Early life
Military service
Religious life
Miller and Freemasonry
Millerism
The Great Disappointment
Resources
See also William Miller
Footnotes
Born February 15, 1782
References
Pittsfield,
External links Massachusetts, U.S.
Online books
Died December 20, 1849
(aged 67)
Low Hampton, New
Early life York, U.S.
William Miller was born on February 15, 1782, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His parents were Captin Miller, a veteran of the American Revolution,
Occupation Farmer
and Paulina, the daughter of Elnathan Pelps. When he was four years old, his family moved to rural Low Hampton, New York. Miller was
Military officer
educated at home by his mother until the age of nine, when he attended the newly established East Poultney District School. Miller is not known to
Baptist minister
have undertaken any type of formal study after the age of eighteen, though he continued to read widely and voraciously. As a youth, he had access
Author
to the private libraries of Judge James Witherell and Congressman Matthew Lyon in nearby Fair Haven, Vermont, as well as that of Alexander
Leader of Millerite
Cruikshanks of Whitehall, New York.[1] In 1803, Miller married Lucy Smith and moved to her nearby hometown of Poultney, where he took up
movement
farming. While in Poultney, Miller was elected to a number of civil offices, starting with the office of Constable. In 1809 he was elected to the
Spouse(s) Lucy Smith
office of Deputy Sheriff and at an unknown date was elected Justice of the Peace. Miller served in the Vermont militia and was commissioned a
lieutenant on July 21, 1810. He was reasonably well off, owning a house, land, and at least two horses. Children 5

Shortly after his move to Poultney, Miller rejected his Baptist heritage and became a Deist. In his biography Miller records his conversion: "I
became acquainted with the principal men in that village [Poultney, Vermont], who were professedly Deists; but they were good citizens, and of a
moral and serious deportment. They put into my hands the works of Voltaire, [David] Hume, Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen, and other deistical
writers."[2]

Military service
At the outbreak of the War of 1812, Miller raised a company of local men and traveled to Burlington, Vermont. He transferred to the 30th Infantry
Regiment in the regular army of the United States with the rank of lieutenant. Miller spent most of the war working as a recruiter and on February
William Miller's Low Hampton, New
1, 1814, he was promoted to captain. He saw his first action at the Battle of Plattsburgh, where vastly outnumbered American forces overcame the York home
British. "The fort I was in was exposed to every shot. Bombs, rockets, and shrapnel shells fell as thick as hailstones", he said. One of these many
shots had exploded two feet from him, wounding three of his men and killing another, but Miller survived without a scratch. Miller came to view
the outcome of this battle as miraculous, and therefore at odds with his deistic view of a distant God far removed from human affairs. He later wrote, "It seemed to me that the Supreme Being must
have watched over the interests of this country in an especial manner, and delivered us from the hands of our enemies... So surprising a result, against such odds, did seem to me like the work of a
mightier power than man."[3]

Religious life
After the war, and following his discharge from the army on June 18, 1815, Miller returned to Poultney. Shortly after his return, however, he moved with his family back to Low Hampton, where
he purchased a farm[4] (now a historic site and operated by Adventist Heritage Ministry). Throughout this time period Miller was deeply concerned with the question of death and an afterlife. This
reflection upon his own mortality followed the recent deaths of his father and sister; and his experiences as a soldier in the war. Miller apparently felt that there were only two options possible
following death: annihilation, and accountability; neither of which he was comfortable with.

Soon after his return to Low Hampton, Miller took tentative steps towards regaining his Baptist faith. At first he attempted to combine both, publicly espousing Deism while simultaneously
attending his local Baptist church. His attendance turned to participation when he was asked to read the day's sermon during one of the local minister's frequent absences. His participation changed
to commitment one Sunday when he was reading a sermon on the duties of parents and became choked with emotion.[5] Miller records the experience:

Suddenly the character of a Savior was vividly impressed upon my mind. It seemed that there might be a Being so good and compassionate as to Himself atone for our
transgressions, and thereby save us from suffering the penalty of sin. I immediately felt how lovely such a Being must be; and imagined that I could cast myself into the arms of,
and trust in the mercy of, such a One.[6]

Following his conversion, Miller's Deist friends soon challenged him to justify his newfound faith. He did so by examining the Bible closely, declaring to one friend "If he would give me time, I
would harmonize all these apparent contradictions to my own satisfaction, or I will be a Deist still."[7] Miller commenced with Genesis 1:1, studying each verse and not moving on until he felt the
meaning was clear. In this way he became convinced firstly, that postmillennialism was unbiblical; and secondly, that the time of Christ's Second Coming was revealed in Bible prophecy.

Miller's interpretation of the 2300 days prophecy time-line and its
relation to the 70 weeks prophecy
Basing his calculations principally on Daniel 8:14: "Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the
sanctuary be cleansed", Miller assumed that the cleansing of the sanctuary represented the Earth's purification
by fire at Christ's Second Coming. Then, using the interpretive principle of the "day-year principle", Miller (and
others) interpreted a day in prophecy to read not as a 24-hour period, but rather as a calendar year. Further,
Miller became convinced that the 2,300 day period started in 457 BC with the decree to rebuild Jerusalem by
Artaxerxes I of Persia. Simple calculation then revealed that this period would end in 1843. Miller records, "I
was thus brought... to the solemn conclusion, that in about twenty-five years from that time 1818 all the affairs
of our present state would be wound up."[8]

Beginning of the 70 Weeks: The decree of Artaxerxes I of Persia in
the 7th year of his reign (457 BC) as recorded in Ezra marks
beginning of 70 weeks. Kings' reigns were counted from New Year to
New Year following an "Accession Year". The Persian New Year
began in Nisan (March–April). The civil New Year in the Kingdom of
Judah began in Tishri (September–October).
lengthy title: Evidence from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ, about the Year 1844: Exhibited in a Course of Lectures.
Although Miller was convinced of his calculations by 1818, he continued to study privately until 1823 to ensure
the correctness of his interpretation. In September 1822, Miller formally stated his conclusions in a twenty-point
document, including article 15: "I believe that the second coming of Jesus Christ is near, even at the door, even
within twenty-one years,--on or before 1843."[9] Miller did not, however, begin his public lecturing until the first
Sunday in August 1831 in the town of Dresden.[10]
In 1832 Miller submitted a series of sixteen articles to the Vermont Telegraph, a Baptist newspaper. The
Telegraph published the first of these on May 15, and Miller writes of the public's response: "I began to be
flooded with letters of inquiry respecting my views; and visitors flocked to converse with me on the subject."[2]
In 1834, unable to personally comply with many of the urgent requests for information and the invitations to
travel and preach that he received, Miller published a synopsis of his teachings in a 64-page tract with the

Miller and Freemasonry

Miller was an active Freemason until 1831.[11][12][13] Miller resigned his Masonic membership in 1831, stating that he did so to "avoid fellowship with any practice that may be incompatible with
the word of God among masons".[14] By 1833 he wrote in a letter to his friends to treat Freemasonry "as they would any other evil".[15]

Millerism
From 1840 onwards, Millerism was transformed from an "obscure, regional movement into a national campaign." The key figure in this transformation
was Joshua Vaughan Himes, the pastor of Chardon Street Chapel in Boston, Massachusetts, and an able and experienced publisher. Though Himes did
not fully accept Miller's ideas until 1842, he established the fortnightly paper Signs of the Times on February 28, 1840, to publicize them.[6]

Despite the urging of his supporters, Miller never personally set an exact date for the expected Second Advent. However, in response to their urgings,
he did narrow the time-period to sometime in the Jewish year beginning in the Gregorian year 1843, stating: "My principles in brief, are, that Jesus
Christ will come again to this earth, cleanse, purify, and take possession of the same, with all the saints, sometime between March 21, 1843, and March
21, 1844."[16] March 21, 1844, passed without incident, and further discussion and study resulted in the brief adoption of a new date (April 18, 1844)
based on the Karaite Jewish calendar (as opposed to the Rabbinic calendar).[17] Like the previous date, April 18 passed without Christ's return. Miller
responded publicly, writing, "I confess my error, and acknowledge my disappointment; yet I still believe that the day of the Lord is near, even at the
door."[18]

In August 1844 at a camp-meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire, Samuel S. Snow presented a message that became known as the "seventh-month"
message or the "true midnight cry." In a discussion based on scriptural typology, Snow presented his conclusion (still based on the 2300 day prophecy
in Daniel 8:14), that Christ would return on, "the tenth day of the seventh month of the present year, 1844."[19] Again, based largely on the calendar of A chart showing Miller's
calculations which mark the
the Karaite Jews, this date was determined to be October 22, 1844.
Second Coming at 1843

The Great Disappointment

After the failure of Miller's expectations for October 22, 1844, the date became known as the Millerites' Great Disappointment. Hiram Edson recorded that "Our fondest hopes and expectations
were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before... We wept, and wept, till the day dawn."[20]

Reaction of Millerites to the Great Disappointment[21]

Cleansing of Sanctuary meant
Attitude toward prophecy Reaction Numbers of Millerites Current groups
2nd Advent in 1844
1844 date invalid Majority left Christianity
No 2nd Advent Abandoned their beliefs Tens of thousands
prophecy invalid Minority rejoined churches
1844 date invalid Jesus coming soon Advent Christian Church,
No 2nd Advent Many hundreds
prophecy valid Some set other dates Jehovah's Witnesses
1844 date valid
2nd Advent – spiritualized Short lived “holy flesh” movement Hundreds Joined Quakers
prophecy valid
1844 date valid Cleansing of Sanctuary meant
Not about 2nd Advent Dozens Seventh-day Adventist Church
prophecy invalid Pre-Advent judgement

Following the Great Disappointment most Millerites simply gave up their beliefs. Some did not and viewpoints and explanations proliferated. Miller initially seems to have thought that Christ's
Second Coming was still going to take place—that "the year of expectation was according to prophecy; but...that there might be an error in Bible chronology, which was of human origin, that
could throw the date off somewhat and account for the discrepancy."[22] Miller never gave up his belief in the Second Coming of Christ.[23]

Estimates of Miller's followers—the Millerites—vary between 50,000, and 500,000. Miller's legacy includes the Advent Christian Church with 61,000 members, and the Seventh-day Adventist
Church with over 19 million members. Both these denominations have a direct connection with the Millerites and the Great Disappointment of 1844. A number of other individuals with ties to the
Millerites founded various short-lived groups. These include Clorinda S. Minor, who led a group of seven to Palestine to prepare for Christ's second coming at a later date.
 The William Miller home is a registered National Historic Landmark and preserved as a museum. The site is not far from the New York-Vermont border.

He died on December 20, 1849, still convinced that the Second Coming was imminent. Miller is buried near his home in Low Hampton, NY and his home is a registered National Historic
Landmark and preserved as a museum: William Miller's Home.[24]

The William Miller Chapel, just a short walk from the Miller home, is managed by a board composed of Seventh-day Adventists and Advent Christian Church members.

Resources
The papers of William Miller are preserved in the archives at Aurora University. Other papers by Miller can be located at the archives at Andrews University and Loma Linda University. In
addition some historical documents were found in Miller's home when his home was purchased by Adventist Heritage Ministry as a historic property in 1983, and are housed in the Ellen G. White
Estate vault in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The standard biography of William Miller is Memoirs of William Miller by Sylvester Bliss (Boston: Joshua V. Himes, 1853). It was republished with a critical introduction by Andrews University
Press in 2006.[25] Other helpful treatments include F. D. Nichol, The Midnight Cry[26] and Clyde Hewitt, Midnight and Morning.

David L. Rowe published God's Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World (Eerdmans: 2008), as part of the Library of Religious Biography series. One reviewer described it as a
"keen historical and cultural analysis."[27]

See also
Christian eschatology
Millennialism
Second Great Awakening

Footnotes
1. Bliss 1853, p. 13. 14. William Miller letter dated September 10, 1831 quoted in David L. Rowe, God's
2. Miller 1845, p. 24. Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World (Eerdmans: 2008), p94.
3. Bliss 1853, pp. 32--53. 15. God's Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World (https://books.google.
com/books?id=xVilO-Mqr3sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=God%27s+Strange+Work:
4. "Adventist Heritage: Miller Farm" (http://www.adventistheritage.org/article.php?id=2
+William+Miller+and+the+End+of+the+World&source=bl&ots=44zWO0n5SH&sig=i
3&PHPSESSID=2d92064899f8fd893e590b88cd678d91). Retrieved 2006-06-08.
ByTA8kvFs9D5UcAjBCwxUCxqvw&hl=en&ei=7kx3TJPnFIGongeAjJD4AQ&sa=X&
Adapted from A. W. Spalding, Footprints, 25–27
oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBoQ6AEwAQ#v=snippet&q=%22a
5. Schwarz & Greenleaf 2000, pp. 30-31. s%20they%20would%20any%20other%20evil%22&f=false) William Miller letter
6. Miller 1845, p. 5. dated April 10, 1833 quoted in David L. Rowe, God's Strange Work: William Miller
7. Miller 1845, p. 17. and the End of the World (Eerdmans: 2008), p94.
8. Miller 1845, pp. 11-12. 16. Quoted in Dick 1994, pp. 96–97
9. Bliss 1853, p. 79. 17. Knight 1993, pp. 163-164.
10. Miller 1845, p. 18. 18. Bliss 1853, p. 256.
11. Bliss 1853, pp. 21--22. 19. Snow 1844, p. 20.
12. Miller (listed as Capt. Miller) is later given as one of the early masters of Morning 20. Quoted in Knight 1993, p. 218
Star Lodge, No. 27. This lodge is said to have been "organized in Poultney prior to 21. Derived from Knight 2000
1800, though the exact date is not known." David L. Rowe's recent Miller 22. Everett N. Dick, William Miller and the Advent Crisis Berrien Springs: [Andrews
biography God's Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World University] Press, 1994, 27.
13. David L. Rowe, God's Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World 23. "Miller Farm" (http://www.adventistheritage.org/article/23/historic-sites/miller-farm).
(Eerdmans: 2008) gives extensive documentation of Miller's Masonic connections, Adventist Heritage Ministry. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
noting that he attended a meeting as a youth on March 4, 1798; joined the Morning
24. "Miller Farm" (http://www.adventistheritage.org/article/23/historic-sites/miller-farm).
Star Lodge in Poultney and eventually rose to the rank of Grand Master. David L.
Adventist Heritage Ministry. Retrieved December 29, 2017.
Rowe, God's Strange Work: William Miller and the End of the World (Eerdmans:
2008), p27.
25. Bliss, Sylvester. "Memoirs of William Miller" (https://web.archive.org/web/20100528 26. Nichol, Francis D. (1945). "The Midnight Cry" (http://www.giveshare.org/churchhist
045352/http://www.andrews.edu/universitypress/catalog.cgi?key=180). Andrews ory/midnight-cry-nichol.pdf) (PDF). Tacoma Park, Washington D.C.
University Press. p. 520. ISBN 978-1-883925-49-9. Archived from the original (htt 27. Michael W. Campbell in Andrews University Seminary Studies 46:2 (Autumn
p://www.andrews.edu/universitypress/catalog.cgi?key=180) on May 28, 2010. 2008), p301–304

References
Bliss, Sylvester (1853). Memoirs of William Miller (https://books.google.com/books?id=hfU_dOu9p6YC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage
&q&f=false). Boston: Joshua V. Himes. 2014 edition: ISBN 978-1614550242
Dick, Everett N. (1994). William Miller and the Advent Crisis (https://archive.org/details/williammilleradv0000dick). Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press. pp. 96–97 (http
s://archive.org/details/williammilleradv0000dick/page/96).
Knight, George R. (1993). Millennial Fever and the End of the World (https://archive.org/details/millennialfevere0000knig). Boise, ID: Pacific Press.
Miller, William (1845). Wm. Miller's Apology and Defence. Boston, MS: Joshua V. Himes.
Schwarz, Richard W.; Greenleaf, Floyd (2000) [1979]. "The Great Advent Awakening". Light Bearers (Revised ed.). Silver Spring, Maryland: General Conference of Seventh-
day Adventists, Department of Education. ISBN 0-8163-1795-X.
Snow, Samuel S. (August 21, 1844). "Advent Herald": 20.

External links
Adventist Archives (http://www.adventistarchives.org/DocArchives.asp) Contains articles by and biographies of William Miller
A Brief History of William Miller (https://books.google.com/books?vid=0ZIlw11aR1BzemPWI-pz7A&id=rqb2WKFJomwC&printsec=titlepage) Published by Advent Christian
Publication Society (1915)
William Miller: The End of Time and the Adventist Sects (http://www.crookedlakereview.com/books/saints_sinners/martin8.html) by John H. Martin
"American Adventism: The Great Disappointment (http://www.ctlibrary.com/ch/1999/issue61/61h031.html)" by Bruce Shelley. Christian History & Biography, 1 January 1999
The Midnight Cry (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.180190) at the Internet Archive
Memoirs of William Miller (https://archive.org/details/memoirsofwilliam00blis) at the Internet Archive

Online books
Books online authored by William Miller:

Views of the Prophecies and Prophetic Chronology, Selected from Manuscripts of William Miller with a Memoir of His Life - (1841). (http://www.earlysda.com/miller/views1.ht
ml)
Evidence from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ, About the Year 1843; Exhibited in a Course of Lectures - (1842). (http://www.earlysda.com/miller/eviden
ce1.html)
Dissertations On the True Inheritance of the Saints, and the Twelve Hundred and Sixty Days of Daniel and John; With an Address To the Conference of Believers In the
Advent Near - (1842). (http://www.earlysda.com/miller/william-miller-dissertations.html)
Sketches of the Christian Life and Public Labors of William Miller, (gathered from his memoir by the late Sylvester Bliss, and from other sources). By Elder James White -
(1875). (http://www.earlysda.com/miller/william-miller-biography.html)

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