Appendix
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than your chronology.” “You have entirely mistaken the nature of the
events which are to occur when those periods have expired. This is the
head and front of your expository offending.... The great event before
the world is not its physical conflagration, but its moral regeneration.
Although there is doubtless a sense in which Christ may be said to
come in connection with the passing away of the Fourth Empire and
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of the Ottoman power, and His kingdom to be illustriously established,
yet that will be found to be a spiritual coming in the power of His
gospel, in the ample outpouring of His Spirit, and the glorious ad-
ministration of His providence.” Evidently, Mr. Bush looked for the
conversion of the world as the event to mark the termination of the
2300 days. Both Mr. Miller and Mr. Bush were right on the time
question, and both were mistaken in the event to occur at the close of
the great periods.
The doctrines taught by Mr. Miller did not originate with him;
every point advanced in his expositions of prophecy, taken separately,
was admitted by some among his opponents. Hence there were none
who condemned all his views, and those who attempted to refute him
found that there was as great diversity among themselves as between
him and them. They had not only to overthrow Mr. Miller’s theory,
but each had to correct those of the others. This being the case, their
arguments could, of course, have little weight with those who had
received his views.
To oppose Miller, men who had been regarded as leaders of re-
ligious thought were ready to abandon long-established principles
of Protestant interpretation. The Boston Recorder (Orthodox Cong.)
Said: “it must needs be acknowledged that our faith is greatly shaken
in the interpretations on which, in common with most of our own
brethren, we have heretofore relied, and which form the foundation of
the baseless theories of Miller”!
In their determination to disprove Mr. Miller’s positions, some
were ready even to join with universalists, adopting indefinite and
spiritualizing methods of exposition, in place of those principles of
literal interpretation which are an essential feature of the Protestant
faith. Of the arguments brought forward by Professors Stuart and Bush
the New York Evangelist spoke as follows: “The tendency of these
views is to destroy the scripture evidence of the doctrine of any real
end of the world, any day of final judgment, or general resurrection