American Reformer
269
“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 not but regard the chronological portions
of the Bible as being as much entitled to our serious consideration as
any other portion of the Scriptures. I felt therefore that in endeavoring
to comprehend what God in his mercy had seen fit to reveal to us, I
had no right to pass over 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 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
[325]
the present state, with all its pride and power, its pomp and vanity,
wickedness and oppression, would come to an end; ... when the curse
would be removed from off the earth, when death would be destroyed,
reward be given to the servants of God, to the prophets and saints, and
all them that fear his name, and those be destroyed who destroy the
earth.”
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
commanded to make Daniel understand the vision, gave him only a
partial explanation. As the terrible persecution to befall the church was