William Miller’s Apology and Defence, August 1

COMMENCEMENT AND TERMINATION OF THE PROPHETIC PERIODS

From a farther study of the Scriptures, I concluded that the seven times of Gentile supremacy must commence when the Jews ceased to be an independent nation at the captivity of Manasseh, which the best chronologers assigned to B. C. 677; that the 2300 days commenced with the seventy weeks, which the best chronologers dated from B. C. 457; and that the 1335 days commencing with the taking away of the daily, and the setting up of the abomination that maketh desolate, Daniel 12:11, were to be dated from the setting up of the Papal supremacy, after the taking away of Pagan abominations, and which, according to the best historians I could consult, should be dated from about A. D. 508. Reckoning all these prophetic periods from the several dates assigned by the best chronologers for the events from which they should evidently be reckoned, they all would terminate together, about A. D. 1843. I was thus brought, in 1818, at the close of my two years study of the Scriptures, to the solemn conclusion, that in about twenty-five years from that time all the affairs of our present state would be wound up; that all its pride & power, pomp and vanity, wickedness and oppression would come to an end; and that in the place of the kingdoms of this world, the peaceful and long desired kingdom of the Messiah would be established under the whole heaven: that in about twenty-five years the glory of the Lord would be revealed, and all flesh see it together, the desert bud and blossom as the rose, the fir-tree come up instead of the thorn, and instead of the briar the myrtle-tree, the curse 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. WMAD 11.2