The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

II. Opposition Brings on Separation From Churches

The Millerites repeatedly asserted that they neither desired nor purposed “to build up another sect, but to meet as Christians with all sects.” They desired only to strengthen all Christian bodies in the hope of, and preparation for, the soon-coming second advent, and to leave believers in peace and love in the congregations with which they were connected. But many of the churches had now become unwilling to hear the message of the return of the Lord, and determined opposition developed against any public expression in prayer and social meetings of the Christian’s hope. PFF4 764.3

The doors of the churches soon closed against the heralds of the advent, and every effort was made to prevent the spread of the advent doctrine. Strangely enough, according to Litch, there was as much opposition to the doctrine of Christ’s imminent coming itself as to the “1843” time feature. It was their premillennialism that cut squarely across the current of popular theology. And when members were forbidden to speak of their hope of soon seeing the King of kings in His beauty, they felt they could only go apart by themselves where they could enjoy that rightful privilege. And this they began to do. Opposition from the clergy usually followed certain standard formulas or patterns: PFF4 765.1

1. No man knows the “day nor the hour.” PFF4 765.2

2. The Lord cannot come until after the millennium. PFF4 765.3

3. The Jews must first be restored to Jerusalem. PFF4 765.4

4. Christ is to come “as a thief.” But so many are now looking for Him that He could not come to surprise them. PFF4 765.5

5. This teaching cannot be true, because so many learned Christiansdo not see the advent hope that way. PFF4 765.6

6. The world is only in its infancy, with the arts and sciences just being developed to fit the world to live in righteousness and peace. PFF4 765.7

7. The end of the 2300 days is near, but that will mean the purification of the church—or the return of the Jews, or the overthrow of the Papacy, at the approach of the millennial era. PFF4 765.8

8. The vision of Daniel 8 has nothing to do with the second coming of Christ and the setting up of God’s everlasting kingdom, but refers simply to Antiochus Epiphanes, his persecuting of the Jews, and the desecration of the temple in the second century B.C.—though such an argument strangely puts the “abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel,” for which the Saviour taught His people to look in the future, beyond His day, back two centuries before His instruction was given. PFF4 765.9

Some of these arguments, as seven and eight, were mutually exclusive. But such opposition invariably advanced the cause it was intended to destroy. The very weakness of many of the conflicting arguments against the strongly supported doctrine of the premillennial second advent led those who had before hesitated, to believe there must be truth in it after all. And this often resulted in examination and conviction. The wide variety of conflicting arguments, which were mutually exclusive and destructive, was amazing. And strange to record, professedly orthodox ministers frequently seemed to make “common cause with infidels and Universalists” against the actual doctrine of the soon coming of the Lord. PFF4 766.1

For example, The Universalist of Hartford, and the Trumpet and Universalist Magazine of Boston were particularly bitter, even violent in their denunciations of Miller and Millerism’s teaching on the nearness of the advent. Time after time, in 1842 and 1843, they attacked the advent leaders in immoderate language, contending the world would continue to exist for “millions of years to come;” that it is but “yet in its infancy, and will be spared to a good old age. Its end will be nearer to a million of ages from this than to 1843.” ⁶ And Miller was charged by the Trumpet with being misguided, ignorant, weak-minded, dishonest, a deceiver, and a humbug, and his theory “all moonshine” and a “deception.” ⁷ Such charges became standard parlance in such circles. PFF4 766.2

The Millerites came to believe that before their very eyes, during that fifth decade of the nineteenth century in which they were living, something was happening to Protestantism at large, and that it was rapidly reversing the cherished positions of three centuries of advancing light on prophecy, in relation to the second advent and understanding of the times. They believed it constituted the most fateful step backward ever taken by modern Protestantism. It was a deliberate turning away from the essential light of prophecy that was designed of God to shine more and more unto that perfect day. In many instances it had virtually put out that light, and was stumbling in the dark on a path it could not see, toward a goal it could no longer recognize-just as the Jews of old, at the first advent, rejected the clear evidence of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the first advent. And as a result, they had fallen as a people from their high estate, and had stepped out of their appointed place as the special custodians of light and truth. PFF4 766.3