Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Mission

A. The Millerites versus non-Millerite historicists

Among the historicists who advocated Muhammadanism, or Islam, as the little horn of Daniel 8, it was probably David Campbell, ² an evangelical clergyman, who received the most attention from the Millerites. Although he was considered a millenarian, ³ he was allowed to express some of his views in the Signs of the Times. In the little horn of Daniel 8 he saw an evil religious power in contrast to a normal horn which represented a political power. This religious power, according to him, could signify nothing else than “the Mahomedan [sic] delusion” because it arose from Syria, which was one of Alexander’s four kingdoms out of which the little horn emerged (8:9). ⁵ He indicated that Syria, as the great center of its operations, “embraced ‘the pleasant land,’ the Jewish ‘sanctuary’ which was to be ‘cast down,’ and afterwards ‘cleansed.’ Syria contained also a part of the Christian ‘host,’ part of which [it] was to ‘cast down,’ and whose ‘daily sacrifice’ was to be ‘taken away.’” Syria, therefore, was “one of the horns of the goat, and the identical one from which the ‘little horn’ of Mohamedanism [sic] arose.” The geographical progress of the little horn (8:9) Campbell identified with the progress of Islam, for it had, he said, “ever prevailed ‘towards the south,’ in Egypt and many parts of Africa, ‘towards the east,’ in India and Persia, ‘and towards the pleasant land,’ Palestine of course, also Syria and Turkey, further on.” The taking away of the daily sacrifice he interpreted as the conversion of the Christian churches into mosques by Muhammadanism, resulting in mass apostasy among “nominal Christians” and a persecution of “real Christians and ministers” which “fulfilled the prediction, that ‘he cast down some of the host, and of the stars to the ground, and stamped on them [8:10].’” ¹ The relation between Islam and the magnification of the little horn against Christ as “the prince of the host” (8:11) he saw fulfilled in the fact that Muhammad and his followers considered “Christ to be a prophet, but deem Mohamed his superior.” ² On the basis of the year-day principle he terminated the 2300 days in 1843 when the power of the Ottoman empire and Islam would end, the Jews would return to Palestine, and a great progression of society would begin. ³ FSDA 58.2

Miller rejected this view of the little horn. Some of his objections were based on the observation that the little horn was to come out of one of the four kingdoms into which Alexander’s empire was divided (8:9). These kingdoms, he insisted, had become Roman provinces between 148 and 30 B.C. so that the little horn muse have come into existence “before Christ, instead of 622 years after Christ, when Mahomet [sic] arose.” ⁴ It was also pointed out that the little horn, symbolized as “a king of fierce countenance” (8:23), should emerge in “the latter time” of the four kingdoms of Alexander’s empire “when the Jews are come to the height of their transgression.” ⁵ This provided another argument that the little horn was Rome, “for Mahomet did not exist until 550 years after the Jews were destroyed for their transgressions.” ⁷ Another objection, according to Miller, was that Campbell’s interpretation violated the unity between Daniel 7 and Daniel 8. Litch remarked that the practice by such historicists to interpret the little horn in Daniel 7 as the papacy and the little horn in Daniel 8 as Islam violated the hermeneutical principle of time-sequence parallelism. ¹ FSDA 59.1

The view that the Jews would return at the end of the 2300 days was strongly opposed by Millerites. Miller reminded his opponents that Christ had broken down the wall of partition between Jews and Gentiles, and emphasized that the only future restoration for both groups was a spiritual one achieved through conversion to Jesus Christ. ² As for Old Testament references to a return of the Jews to Palestine, he stated that these passages were written “before the Jews were restored from Babylon, and had their literal fulfillment in that event.” ³ In those instances where such had not been completely realized to the Jews prior to the cross, they would be fulfilled to spiritual Israel under the new covenant. ⁵ Furthermore, Miller found the concept of a millennium on earth before Christ’s return incongruous with Daniel 7:9-13, 21, 22; Luke 17:26-30; Mark 13:23-29; 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-4; 2 Thessalonians 2:7-10 and Revelation 14:14-20. FSDA 60.1

In 1842 Richard C. Shimeall, ⁶ an Episcopalian minister and a millenarian, who advocated a premillennial Second Advent followed by a “period of millenial [sic] blessedness of the saved nations in the flesh,” published a work in which the little horn was also designated as “the Mohamedan [sic] imposture.” ⁷ The termination of the 2300 days he dated in 1847 when “the Lord Jehovah will appear for the restoration and re-establishment in Palestine of the seed of Abraham.” ¹ The end of this period would also signify “the overthrow of the last Anti-Christ” which included “ALL the persecuting Anti-Christian powers-the Pagan, the Papal, the Mahometan [sic], and the Infidel.” ² FSDA 60.2

The following year William C. Brownlee, D.D., ³ a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church and a millenarian, also interpreted the termination of Daniel 8:14 in the context of the Jews. In his polemic against Millerism he stated that the end of the 2300 days would bring “‘the cleansing of the sanctuary,’ long trodden under foot, and ‘the putting an end to the desolations of the afflicted,’ and ‘peeled remnants’ of the house of Judah, and Israel. The prophet is predicting deliverances to the Hebrews, NOT the end of the world!” ⁴ Some of the imminent events he expected were: (1) The destruction of the antichrists of Rome and Constantinople; (2) the return of the Jews to Palestine and their conversion; (3) the proclamation of the gospel to the whole world and the conversion of the Gentiles; (4) the spiritual reign of Christ during the millennium. ⁵ FSDA 61.1

During this year (1843), another millenarian, Samuel F. Jarvis, D.D., LL.D., ⁶ Professor of Biblical Literature at the Episcopalian General Theological Seminary in New York City, also associated the completion of Daniel 8:14 with the return and conversion of the Jewish nation. ⁷ He rejected Miller’s assumed connection between Daniel 8 and Daniel 9, concluding that it was impossible to determine the beginning of the 2300 days except by counting backward-whenever it should occur-from “the conversion of the Jews and their restoration to their own land.” ¹ FSDA 61.2

In 1844 George Bush, ² Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature at New York City University-an exceptional exegete who placed the millennium in the past (5th-15th century, A.D.) ³ wrote Miller that his usage of the year-day principle was “sustained by the soundest exegesis, as well as fortified by the high names of [Joseph] Mede, Sir I. Newton, Bishop [Thomas] Newton, [William] Kirby, [Thomas] Scott, [Alexander] Keith, and a host of others who have long since come to substantially your conclusion on this head.” ⁵ Miller’s mistake, according to Bush, was not in his “chronology” but in “the nature of the events which are to occur when those periods have expired.” In Bush’s opinion mankind had “arrived at a momentous era of the world, and that the expiration of these periods is to introduce, by gradual steps, a new order of things, intellectual, political and moral.” Regarding the time sequence between the fourth kingdom and the establishment of the everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:27), Bush remarked that “the plain import of the passage is, that the one power should be gradually abolished, and the other gradually introduced.” Thus, he said, “the great event before the world is not its physical conflagration, but its moral regeneration.” FSDA 62.1

The idea of gradual moral regeneration was strongly criticized by William Miller. The concept, he said, was incongruous with the testimony of Daniel 7 in which verse 11 pictures a “sudden destruction by fire,” verse 13 suggests Christ’s return, verse 25 provides “an allusion to the sudden destruction of the fourth kingdom,” and verse 26 shows “a judgment setting, and a taking away [of] the fourth kingdom first, not wearing away.” ⁹ A Millerite editorial stated that the concept of a gradual introduction of the kingdom of God on earth was in contradiction to Peter’s testimony regarding the judgment of the present earth (2 Peter 3:5-10) at the Second Advent (2 Timothy 4:1) when the Resurrection would take place (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Bush’s concept was also seen to be in conflict with Daniel’s testimony on the nature of the judgment (Daniel 2:34, 35, 44, 45; 7:9, 10, 13, 14). ¹ FSDA 62.2