American Reformer
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to take place in human history clearly pointed out in the Scriptures of
truth.
“As I was fully convinced,” says Miller, “that all Scripture given
by inspiration of God is profitable (
2 Timothy 3:16
); that it came not at
any time by the will of man, but was written as holy men were moved
by the Holy Ghost (
2 Peter 1:21
), and was written ‘for our learning,
that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have
hope’ (
Romans 15:4
), I could but regard the chronological portions
of the Bible as being as much a portion of the word of God, and as
much entitled to our serious consideration, as any other portion of the
Scriptures. I therefore felt that in endeavoring to comprehend what
God had in His mercy seen fit to reveal to us, I had no right to pass
over the prophetic periods.”—Bliss, page 75.
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 accepted the
generally received view that in the Christian age the earth is the sanc-
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tuary, 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.”—Bliss, page 76.
With a new and deeper earnestness, Miller continued the examina-
tion of the prophecies, whole nights as well as days being devoted to
the study of what now appeared of such stupendous importance and
all-absorbing interest. In the eighth chapter of Daniel he could find no
clue to the starting point of the 2300 days; the angel Gabriel, though