The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

III. Miller’s First Sermon Based on Daniel 7 and 8

Miller’s deepening distress and inward struggle of conscience over his duty to tell his convictions to the world came to a climax one eventful summer’s day in 1831. ⁸ Ms., in Sheriff’s Record Book; also printed in Bliss, Memoirs, pp. 77—80. It was the second Saturday of the month, which was August 13, ⁹ and Miller was at home in Low Hampton. He had finished breakfast, and had spent a little time at his old-fashioned desk in the pleasant east room of his sturdy farm house, checking further upon “some point” in his study. As he rose to go about some task, the conviction came to his mind with greater urgency than ever before, “Go and tell it to the world.” It was just as if God had spoken the words. The impression was so realistic and so powerful that he sank back into his well-worn chair and entered into an actual colloquy about the matter. “I can’t go, Lord,” he said. “Why not?” seemed to come the answering question. PFF4 482.1

Miller marshaled all the old threadbare excuses that he could summon—about his age, not being a preacher, his lack of training, want of ability, slowness of speech, and the like. But not one of them, or all of them together, could silence the voice of conviction that insisted it was his bounden obligation to share his faith with others in a public way. His distress of soul became so great that he entered then and there into a solemn covenant with God, sealed with prayer, that if God definitely opened the way he would go and perform his duty to the world. “What do you mean by opening the way?” the voice seemed to ask. “Why,” he replied, “if I should have an invitation to speak publicly in any place, I will go and tell them what I have found.” ¹⁰ PFF4 482.2

So, after the long, hard struggle, he had consented to go out and attempt to speak on the subject—if the Lord should open the way. Little did he dream that within a scant half hour he would be confronted with just such an opening. He had thought himself safe, through the terms of his condition, from having to carry out his compact. His burden seemed lifted, and he felt relieved. But at that self-same moment a lad of sixteen was riding down the road on horseback from nearby Dresden to Low Hampton, bearing an invitation to Miller to come and tell the members of the Baptist church of Dresden his views on the second advent. PFF4 483.1

This lad, Irving Guilford, was Miller’s nephew, the son of his sister Sylvia, who, with her husband Silas, was a faithful leader in the Dresden Baptist church. They had been discussing the absence of their pastor for the next few days, and Silas had proposed that they ask “William” to come over for Sunday, and tell them of his convictions on the second advent, based on his years of personal Bible study. They would gather in their neighbors, mostly Baptists, and he could just talk to them about it if he did not care to preach. The church group could even meet in the large living room of their log home, instead of in the church, if that would make it easier for him. So they had dispatched the lad, who reached Miller’s home soon after his solemn covenant with the Lord. PFF4 483.2

Then came the knock at Miller’s door, and Irving Guilford entered and delivered his message—that “our minister is away, and the folks want you to come and talk to the people on the second advent of Christ. We’ll have the neighbors come to our house, and you can have the whole church there.” The astonished Miller was thunderstruck, and was angry with himself for the covenant he had made. He himself says of the episode, “I rebelled at once against the Lord, and determined not to go.” ¹¹ Without a word he turned and stalked rather stormily out of the house. He went down the sloping yard, heading for the adjoining maple grove, where he could battle it out on his knees. PFF4 483.3

The struggle was intense. He had come to that crucial moment of decision that comes to many a life that is moved by deep conviction. In the shadows of the maple grove, hard by his home, Miller fell to his knees and first prayed that God would release him from his promise. But the only answer he seemed to receive was the now familiar, “Go and tell it to the world.” And in the somber silence of the grove his conscience thundered, “Will you make a covenant with God and break it so soon?” He had promised that if he were called upon to speak forth his faith in public he would go. God had taken him at his word, and now in less than half an hour he had had that call. That was obviously the issue, clear and simple. PFF4 484.1

There was but one answer that a man of Miller’s caliber and character could return. He who had been an officer in the Army, under orders from his commander in chief, and who had come from stern New England fighting stock, must not, and would not, renege. His word of honor was at stake. He had specifically promised that he would respond if he were invited to go and tell his faith. And here was the call. So then and there upon his knees, he surrendered to the clear mandate of God, and said, “Lord, I will go.” PFF4 484.2

He returned to the house with the peace of God in his heart. The lad was waiting for the answer, and Miller told him that after they had had dinner he would go with him. So that sultry August afternoon, taking his thumb-worn Bible and hymn-book, they left for Dresden, sixteen miles distant-and for Miller’s first public discourse. The next morning dawned—Sunday, August 14—and the neighbors who belonged to the little Baptist church of Dresden came knocking into the comfortable Guilford home. Miller found himself facing a well- filled house. Many sat on quilt-covered planks stretched from stool to chair, and chair to wood box or chopping block. Miller sat in the big armchair, and the people waited to hear. After prayer and a hymn Miller began. Here are his own words: PFF4 484.3

“As soon as I commenced speaking, all my diffidence and embarrassment were gone, and I felt impressed only with the greatness of the subject, which, by the providence of God, I was enabled to present.” ¹² The scene reminds one vividly of the epochal discourse of Archbishop Eberhard II, of Salzburg, in the long ago, at the Council of Regensburg in 1240-the first sermon recorded in history which identified the Little Horn historically as the Papacy; and then of the similar episode, three centuries later under John Knox of Scotland, and his very first discourse, on Daniel 7, in old St. Andrew’s Castle in 1547, at the outset of the Scottish Reformation. ¹³ But Miller was another three centuries this side of Knox, as in 1831 he first read and expounded to the little Baptist church group the message of Daniel 7. PFF4 485.1

Like Knox, he showed just how the four empires of Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and Rome under the symbols of the lion, bear, leopard, and the terrible beast with iron teeth had each come and gone, and how that papal “Little Horn” had appeared among the divisions of Rome, and had persecuted the saints of God during the course of the long 1260 years. But Miller then did what Knox did not do back in his day-he added another division to his discourse. He next turned to Daniel 8, and explained that chapter along with Daniel 7 and its 1260 years-how 2300 years after the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem the sanctuary would be cleansed, which he thought meant the cleansing of the earth by fire at Christ’s second advent. ¹⁴ PFF4 485.2

That, he solemnly stated, was the special truth due for the time then present. And he showed how the commandment went forth in 457 B.C., and they could figure out for themselves that the 2300 years would then end “about 1843.” They must prepare for the coming of the Lord. Prophecy was thus the throbbing heart of his first public discourse, just as it continued to be the central theme throughout the approximately four thousand sermons he preached from that day on, up till 1844. ¹⁵ The little group was profoundly moved. They had never heard anything like it before. The message reached home, and tears came to the eyes of strong men, while gentle women wept under his earnest appeal. After the meeting they crowded around Miller and plied him with questions—about the “beasts” meaning kingdoms, and the “days” standing for years, and about the “sanctuary” that was to be cleansed. Others went away, pondering silently but soberly the unusual message of the man from Low Hampton, who had come to “fill in” while their pastor was away. It was a fateful day, that August 14, of 1831. PFF4 485.3

This maiden “lecture,” as Miller described it, must have made a marked impression upon his listeners, for they wanted to hear more. His message could not be given in just one sermon, so they made him promise to continue his lectures throughout the week, closing the next Sunday. He stayed on, stopping at his sister’s house. The remainder of the series was evidently transferred to the modest Baptist church in nearby Dresden, now called demons. (Photograph appears on p. 487.) A number who had grown cold were converted again, and active church members confessed their sins and sought to get ready to meet their returning Lord. All but two of the members of thirteen families were “hopefully converted” to Christ, and began to prepare for His second coming—and the Guilfords were among those who accepted Miller’s views. PFF4 486.1

People came not only from the community but from nearby towns, and a revival developed. Many began to believe Miller’s message. And the preaching of the approaching second advent naturally led his auditors to seek to be ready for that transcendent event. Rooted and grounded in prophecy, his very first addresses had indeed made a profound impression upon the community. A work had begun at Dresden, during that fateful week in August, the significance of which no one realized at the time. PFF4 486.2

Picture 1: SCENES OF MILLER’S EARLIEST SERMONS ON THE IMMINENCE OF THE ADVENT
(Left) little white baptist church in dresden township (Now Clemons), New York, where Miller gave his initial series of Sermons on the second advent in the light of prophecy during the week beginning August 14, 1831. Immediately afterward he preached a similar series in east poultney, vermont, in the stately baptist “Meeting House on the Green”-an Architectural Gem in white (Right). On the bell calling to worship the inscription reads, “Let Him That Heareth Say, Come.” “Elder Fuller” was its pastor
Page 487

And the sequel is equally interesting and important. Miller had no sooner returned to his home the next Monday, from this first series of public lectures in Dresden, than he found a letter awaiting from “Elder Fuller,” the Baptist minister of Poultney, Vermont, only a few miles distant—where Miller had lived several earlier years as a deist—asking him to come and tell his congregation of Miller’s belief in the second advent. At that time Fuller had not as yet heard of the Dresden episode. ¹⁶ Thus the door of invitation opened the second time. Miller responded, speaking in the Poultney Baptist church, and with similar results. (Photograph appears on p. 487.) But these were not the end; they were only the beginning. He went on, by request, to Pawlet and to other towns in the vicinity. The die was cast. The Dresden and Poultney experiences were destined to be repeated scores, yes, literally hundreds and hundreds of times, in Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, and other churches throughout New England, eastern Canada, and finally as far west as Ohio and as far south as Maryland. Backsliders were reclaimed and worldlings converted. PFF4 487.1

Incidentally, Elder Fuller, of Poultney, became Miller’s first ministerial convert to his second advent views. ¹⁷ And it is also worthy of note, in passing, that the geographical proximity of these earliest invitations reveals the esteem in which Miller was held locally, and the effectiveness of even his earliest attempts at preaching. Soon he received so many invitations that he could not possibly respond to them all. But that will be noted later. Of this Miller testifies: PFF4 488.1

“The most pressing invitations from the ministry, and the leading members of the churches poured in continually, from that time, during the whole period of my public labors, and with more than one half of which I was unable to comply. Churches were thrown open everywhere, and I lectured to crowded houses, through the western part of Vermont, the northern part of New York, and in Canada East.” ¹⁸ PFF4 488.2

The Millerite movement was now definitely, though locally, under way. PFF4 488.3