The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

II. Episcopalian Shimeall-Advent in 1847; Consummation in 1868

Another vigorous premillennialist was RICHARD CUNINGHAM SHIMEALL, ¹³ rector of St. Jude’s Episcopal Free Church of New York City. He was remarkably well read, as concerns past prophetic expositors, not only of early church and Reformation days but of post-Reformation times-men like Brightman, Burnet, Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, Tillinghast, and Fleming, as the generous documentation of his book attests. In fact, he had unusual acquaintance with the whole history of prophetic interpretation down to the more recent writings of Faber, Bicheno, and Prideaux. Nor was he connected with William Miller and his associates, but was intimately acquainted with early nineteenth-century British Advent Awakening expositors like Cuninghame, Habershon, Brooks, Bickersteth, Frere, Irving, Hooper, Pym, Keith, Noel, Thorp, and M’Neile, whom he cites.” ¹⁴ PFF4 370.1

1. EXPECTS SECOND ADVENT IN A.D. 1847

One can see TREATISES STRESS EXPECTANCY OF TIMES 371 the source from which Shimeall derived, or at least confirmed, his position on the 1260, 1290, 1335, and 2300 days; he seems to follow William Pym, British expounder, especially. But the first four British expositors named, dated the 2300 years from 457 B.C. to A.D. 1843 (or 1844), while the second four terminated them in 1847—placing the 70th week with the crucifixion in the midst, in A.D. 33—and all of them began the 1260 days in 533, and ended the 1335 in 1867 (or 1868). Along with several of these British expositors, Shimeall considered the 1847 ending of the 2300 years to mark the second advent, but looked to 1868 as the beginning of the millennium, ¹⁵ thus differing sharply from the Millerites, whom he opposed vigorously. PFF4 370.2

2. BEGINS 1260, 1290, AND 1335 TOGETHER IN A.D. 533

In common with hundreds of other investigators, Shimeall was tremendously interested in the “times and seasons,” and profoundly believed that time was waxing late. In his Age of the World he first deals with the foibles of atheist, infidel, and antiquarian, and the various specious philosophies of life and creation, revealing his remarkably extensive reading. Going beyond Faber’s theory that the six days of creation were six long periods of time followed by the seventh-the present age—he reduces all these periods to exactly six thousand years each, 36,000 years, with the seventh the supposed period of God’s “rest” from the creation of Adam and Eve to the millennium. ¹⁶ PFF4 371.1

Coming to Lecture 1 on the age of the world, he discusses the question of profane and sacred chronology, or divisions of time, the “golden chain of measurement” of the present age. He deals with Julian and Gregorian time, the Jewish year, the “ante-diluvian solar year,” et cetera, the Hebrew versus the Septuagint chronology, et cetera. After tracing a Biblical chronology to the Babylonian captivity, he turns to prophetic time numbers. PFF4 371.2

As remarked, in common with many nineteenth-century British and not a few American interpreters, Shimeall takes 533 as the joint beginning year for the 1260-, 1290-, and 1335-year periods, and therefore ends the 1260 in 1793 and the 1335 in 1868. He looks to 1847, the end of the 2300 days, as a year of crisis, and the beginning of important events. But his eyes were fixed upon 1868 as the time of the great consummation. The year-day principle is axiomatic in all of his prophetic calculations. ¹⁷ PFF4 372.1

3. PAPAL LITTLE HORN CLEARLY IDENTIFIED

The four beasts of Daniel 7 clearly symbolize Babylonia, Persia, Grecia, and Rome, with the Little Horn as the Papacy, which was to try God’s people severely. The coming stone of Christ’s kingdom is to break in pieces all nations. The ram and he-goat, and the little but expanding horn in Daniel 8, are Persia, Grecia, and Mohammedanism. And the 2300 year-days, and the 70 weeks of years of Daniel 9 have, he holds, a “common commencement”—the 490 years being cut off from the 2300 as a “season of mercy to the Jews,” and lead to the cutting off of the Messiah for the redemption of man. The longer period, he believes, extends from 453 B.C. to A.D. 1847—the cleansing of the sanctuary and the restoration and re-establishment of the Jews in Palestine. The papal Little Horn of Daniel 7 (which is the same as the ten-horned Beast of the Apocalypse) and the Mohammedan Little Horn of Daniel 8 both last 3i/L times, and“666” is applied alike to Lateinos, Romiith, and Vicarius Filii Dei, identifying the Latin church, and to the name Maometis. ¹⁸ PFF4 372.2

4. BELIEVES MILLENNIUM FOLLOWS A.D. 1868

On the dating of the 1260 years, Shimeall frankly accepts the 533 dating of the papal Antichrist set forth by Cuninghame, Frere, Irving, Habershon, Keith, and Bickersteth. ¹⁹ Thus he terminates the longer 1335 years in 1868, as the time of the beginning of the blessed millennium. This, he believes, will involve the complete overthrow of popery, Mohammedanism, infidelity, and every other opposing force. So ends Lecture 1. PFF4 372.3

5. TURKISH 391-YEARS FROM 1453 TO 1844

The lateness of earth’s “times” is discerned by certain “signs,” or harbingers—apostasy, decay of piety, prevalence of iniquity, last-day scoffers, the universal spread of the gospel, the rejection of the wisdom of inspired Revelation, peace talk coupled with war rumors, and famines, pestilences, and earthquakes, as well as special signs in the heavens, the approaching drying up of the Turk under the sixth vial (the first vial beginning, he thought, in 1792). The 391 years of the sixth trumpet he places from 1453 to 1844. This is a prelude to the final destruction of the Papacy, one of the last events. But these are all signs of the last times. So the 2300 years, according to Shimeall, lead to the appearance of Christ for the restoration of the Jews, beginning in 1847, followed by the millennial kingdom coming in 1868. ²⁰ PFF4 373.1

6. STRESSES PREMILLENNIAL SECOND ADVENT

In the printed outline of his projected General Scope of Prophecy, Shimeall takes up the cudgels with Professors Moses Stuart and George Bush, as well as Hopkins and Jarvis. He includes a systematic survey of the various schools of prophetic interpretation, the meaning of prophetic symbolism, together with a brief history of millennial expectations—from Cerinthus and on to the A.D. 1000 expectation (based on the Augustinian theory), then to the Protestant fifth monarchy men in Cromwell’s time, the Anabaptists, the French prophets, Shakers, Mormons, and the then-popular postmillennialism springing from Whitby and others, as well as Millerism. In contrast, Shimeall, citing the testimony of the early Christian Fathers, stresses the second, personal, literal, premillennial advent of Christ, involving the destruction of all Antichristian nations, the conversion of the Jews, the literal resurrection of the righteous dead, and the “rapture” of the saints; the millennial kingdom, and the great “day” of judgment, Satan’s brief loosing at the millennium’s close, and the re-creation of the new heaven and earth state-heaven. ²¹ PFF4 373.2

Shimeall took up the cudgels against the Millerites in a sermon with a self-explanatory title: Prophecy, Now in Course of Fulfilment, As Connected With the 2,300 Days of Daniel 8:14: A Sermon, in Two Parts, on Daniel 11:14, Last Clause; Showing the Predicted Rise, Career, and Subversion of Millerism: to Take Effect Between the Spring and Fall Equinoxes of 1844. The text which he applies to the Millerites concerns “the robbers of thy people,” who shall fail “to establish the vision.” PFF4 374.1

Shimeall here exemplifies the difference between the Literalists and the Millerites. He expected the literal, personal return of Jesus in 1847 as confidently as Miller did in 1843. But he expected Christ to set up an earthly kingdom with the Jews restored and converted. He indignantly accuses the Millerites of being “the robbers of thy people” in “wresting from God’s people [meaning the Jews] THEIR COVENANTED RELATIONS TO HIM!” He did not find fault with them because they denied the perfectibility of the world, nor because they set a specific year for the advent, but because they declared that the true Israel was not the Jewish nation but the church. PFF4 374.2