The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

II. Numerous Early Charts Precede “1843” Standard

Numerous prophetic charts and diagrams were devised and used by the Millerites prior to the standard “1843” chart. But these were all superseded by this improved production. They were usually composite affairs, picturing the relationship of the various prophetic symbols to each other, and the interrelated time periods of Daniel and the Apocalypse. Some were plain diagrams, restricted to the various time periods, and setting forth a harmony of these different periods. Others were quite “elaborate. PFF4 721.4

1. MILLER FIRST SYNCHRONIZES PERIODS BY DIAGRAM.—

One of the first of the charts was a hand-lettered diagram by Miller, showing the related timing of the basic 2300 years of Daniel 8:14, which he extends from 457 B.C. to A.D. 1843. ⁵ This bottom horizontal line is marked off by centuries, starting with the 70 weeks and its subdivisions, and the cross at the extreme end, or close, of the 70 weeks, in A.D. 33. PFF4 722.1

The next line above indicates the “subdivisions” of the longer period—the 1260—, 1290—, and 1335—year periods of Daniel 11 and 12. On this the words appear: “Papal civil power begins A.D. 538 and ends A.D. 1798, being 1260 years.” The third and fourth lines show the “length of the Roman Kingdom.” The third line begins with B.C. 158 and reads, “Pagan Rome 666 years”—leading thence to A.D. 508, from which date Miller extends the 1335 years of Daniel 12:12, 13 “to the Resurrection.” The fourth line was an early idea, later abandoned, that two thousand years of Roman power over the church will extend to 1842, and the third thousand years of millennium, begins with the Jewish year 1843—a personal view by Miller, not shared by many of his associates. PFF4 722.2

The fifth, sixth, and seventh horizontal lines all indicate the 1260 years from 538, as the time of the “court trodden under foot by the Gentiles” (Revelation 11:2; Daniel 12:7); when the “two witnesses prophesy clothed in sackcloth” (Revelation 11:3-14); and the time of the “church in the wilderness” for three and a half times (Daniel 7:25; Revelation 12:6, 14). Finally, the top, or eighth, line deals with the fifth and sixth trumpets—the fifth, or “5 months” (Revelation 9:1-12), for 150 years reaching, according to Miller’s early view, from 1298 to 1448; and the sixth trumpet, or “391 years and 15 days” (the hour, day, month, and year of Revelation 9:13, 21), extending from 1448 to 1839. And, directly above, the words appear, “The 7th [trumpet] begins 1839 and ends 1843.” PFF4 722.3

2. ANONYMOUS DIAGRAM OF SEALS, TRUMPETS, AND VIALS.

Another clever diagram, without name attached, and just on the “Apocalyptic Seals, Trumpets, and Vials,” was published in the newly established Signs of the Times, in May, 1840. ⁶ Beginning with the upper left corner, at A.D. 70, the subject matter progresses two ways-vertically, from top to bottom—first the seals and then the trumpets; and at the same time, horizontally, finally followed by the seven vials. These all lead to “The Seventh Millennium, or Jubilee Sabbath of the Whole Creation,” at the “end of the world.” PFF4 723.1

This early concept begins the seven seals with the first seal (A.D. 70-100), as the “Period of wars”; the second (100-138), as “famines”; the third (138-193), as “Death on a pale horse”; the fourth (193-270), as the “Tenth bloody persecution of the saints”; the fifth (270-304), as “Blessed tranquility after the abolition of Paganism”; the sixth (304-350), as “The silence which precedes the sounding of trumpets”; and the seventh seal, A.D. 350 to the “end of the world.” This was largely the scheme of Joseph Mede, ⁷ who held that the seventh seal, embracing all seven trumpets, “unrolls the history of the world from A.D. 350 to the millennium,” and is “divided into seven distinct periods.” So the seventh trumpet, in turn, comprehends the seven vials, or plagues, following Mede. PFF4 723.2

The trumpets then follow the seals: The first (370-410) is depicted as when “Roman Provinces first invaded by Barbarians”; the second (410-450), as a “bloody one to Italy and central Rome”; the third (450-500), as “embittered by civil and ecclesiastical dissension”; the fourth (500-566), as the period that “extinguished the waning luminaries of old Roman empire”; the fifth (566-1281), as the period that “developed the little horn of Mohamed in the Greek, and that of Popery in the Latin church”; to which is annexed the “first wo,” with its 150 years (from 612-762); then the sixth trumpet (1281 to the “downfall of Popery”), which embraces the “second wo,” from 1281-1672, as the 391 years. This had been a common position for centuries in both Old World and New. ⁸ Finally, the seventh trumpet begins to sound when “the mystery of God is finished,” and the blast ends with the voice of the archangel at the end of the world. PFF4 723.3

Then the seven vials are pictured as beginning with the sixth trumpet, in 1281. The first was poured out upon the “Roman earth,” and “exposed her ulcerous church in the time of the Reformation”; the second was poured “upon the Roman See during the troublous times subsequent to the Reformation”; the third was upon “the tributaries of the Roman See,” by the “devastating wars of the 17th century”; the fourth fell on “the kingly powers of Europe,” which “scorched the people of the 18th century”; the fifth was poured “upon the seat of the beast, and resulted in the darkness of the French Revo-[lution]”; the sixth fell “upon the proud Ottoman, and is drying up his Euphratean power”; and finally the seventh, or last vial, is poured out upon the air, “not local, but all-pervading in its effects upon a wicked world.” PFF4 724.1

This is the time of the “harvest and vintage,” and the “Battle of the great day of God Almighty.” And this is the “Twilight of the Millennial day,” followed by the “Seventh Millennium, or Jubilee Sabbath of the Whole Creation,” with the devil “loosed a little season before the archangel blast of the seventh trumpet.” But all this, of course, is just a modification of Joseph Mede’s theory, and was soon abandoned by the Millerites generally, as well as by Miller himself. PFF4 724.2