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Early Writings
was studying. He had before him only his Bible and a concordance.
In time he came in his study to the prophecies of the literal, personal,
second coming of Christ. He grappled also with the great time
prophecies, particularly the 2300-day prophecy of
Daniel 8 and 9
,
Which he linked with the prophecy of
Revelation 14
and the message
of the angel proclaiming the hour of God’s judgment (
Revelation
14:6, 7
). In this volume, on page 229, Mrs. White states that “God
sent His angel to move upon the heart” of William Miller, “to lead
him to search the prophecies.”
In her girlhood Mrs. White heard Miller deliver two series of
lectures in the city of Portland, Maine. A deep and lasting impression
was made on her heart. We will let her set before us the reckoning
of the prophecies, as Elder Miller presented them to his audiences.
For this we turn to Mrs. White’s later book,
The Great Controversy
:
The Reckoning of the Prophetic Periods
“The prophecy which seemed most clearly to reveal the
time
of
the second advent was that of
Daniel 8:14
: ‘Unto two thousand and
three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.’ Following
his rule of making scripture its own interpreter, Miller learned that a
day in symbolic prophecy represents a year [
Numbers 14:34
;
Ezekiel
4:6
.]; He saw that the period of 2300 prophetic days, or literal
years, would extend far beyond the close of the Jewish dispensation,
hence it could not refer to the sanctuary of that dispensation. Miller
[x]
accepted the generally received view, that in the Christian age the
earth is the sanctuary, and he therefore understood that the cleansing
of the sanctuary foretold in
Daniel 8:14
represented the purification
of the earth by fire at the second coming of Christ. If, then, the
correct starting-point could be found for the 2300 days, he concluded
that the time of the second advent could be readily ascertained. Thus
would be revealed the time of that great consummation, the time
when the present state, with ‘all its pride and power, pomp and
vanity, wickedness and oppression, would come to an end;’ when
the curse would be ‘removed from off the earth, death be destroyed,
reward be given to the servants of God, the prophets and saints, and
them who fear his name, and those be destroyed that destroy the
earth.’ [Footnote: Bliss,
Memoirs of Wm. Miller
, 76.]