The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

III. First General Conference Inaugurates New Advance

The very fact that various ministers of strength and prominence had now joined hands with Miller in heralding the approaching advent of Christ, created the need for some kind of conference where they could exchange views and harmonize any variant viewpoints on minor matters. The hour had come to bring a united and positive testimony to the world. Prior to this there had been no particular need for such coordination, as Miller had been about the only active spokesman. The ministers who had now come to share Miller’s views had corresponded among themselves, but many had never seen each other. So in September, 1840, a call was issued by an authorizing committee, headed by William Miller, for a “General Conference on the Second Coming of Christ,” to convene on October 14 at Boston, in Himes’s Chardon Street Christian Chapel. PFF4 559.2

The walls of his church had often echoed to the voices of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott. Maria Chapman, William Lloyd Garrison, and Wendell Phillips as they formulated their plans to strike the fetters from the slaves of America, and had gathered in other conventions. And now this same edifice was about to become the cradle, as it were, of the newly forming Advent Movement. It was the first prophetic conference to be called in America, ² and was destined to mark the beginning of a distinctly new era of unity, witnessing, and expansion—a new epoch in the enlarging Advent Movement. PFF4 560.1

Through this united effort far-reaching expansions re suited. Large numbers of ministers were awakened and led to join their voices and employ their pens in proclaiming the advent message, many of whom now began to devote themselves to full-time service in the advent cause. There was marked advance into hitherto unentered territory, and a sharp increase in adherents was the result. This conference was not called just for Methodists or Baptists, for Congregationalists or Presbyterians, or for Episcopalians or Lutherans, but was truly interdenominational in composition. However, as remarked, it might more accurately be called intradenominational. It was an emphasis within the churches. It was for all ministers who loved the soon-coming second appearing of Jesus Christ. It was to afford opportunity to compare notes, exchange thoughts, worship together, and above all to come into essential unity, so as to present a common front to an antagonistic world. It did not dissolve their denominational affiliations. And the day of convocation brought together a gratifying delegation—twenty or thirty ministers and many able laymen of various categories, representing nearly all the evangelical denominations-some two hundred in all. PFF4 560.2

The friends in Boston provided their simple board in semi-cafeteria style-long tables supplied with bread, cheese, cold meats, apples, and similar fare. After gathering around the tables for grace they stood while they ate, soon making way for others to follow. Thus the more than two hundred were quickly cared for, and several baskets of fragments gathered and given to the poor of the city. ³ PFF4 560.3

The organization of the conference was simple-just a chairman (Dr. Henry Dana Ward, ⁴ prominent Episcopal clergyman of New York), a secretary (Henry Jones, Congregational minister, likewise of New York), and certain committees. Four men were scheduled for the leading addresses-Litch, Jones, Miller, and Ward. Able addresses were given. Miller, however, detained by a case of typhoid fever, had to send on his dissertation concerning the judgment to be read by another. The conference was a pronounced success, and it was voted to publish a representative Report, including the addresses. When printed, it totaled 126 pages, and was sent to all the clergymen of the country, as well as to the theological seminaries, prominent laymen, and missionaries throughout the world. PFF4 561.1

Some two thousand copies of the full report were first published, ⁵ as well as additional copies of the various separate addresses. This was made possible because Himes raised the funds to care for the printing costs. In all some ten thousand copies were distributed ⁶—really an extraordinary feat for those of the Adventist, or Millerite, persuasion. Besides these, three thousand extra copies of the brief report in Signs of the Times for November 1, 1840, were sent out in addition to the regular list. This combined distribution reached the most representative men in America, and brought the case of Adventism squarely before the religious leadership of the country. It made a profound impression, and many were converted thereby to the faith of the premillennial advent. PFF4 561.2

Litch, in his introductory address, said significantly: PFF4 562.1

“It is with deep emotion, friends and brethren, I stand before you at this time and on this interesting occasion. The purposes of our meeting are so novel, the objects to be accomplished so grand and vast, and the theme to be discussed and contemplated so glorious, as to inspire the heart with the most sublime and ennobling views and feeling.” ⁷ PFF4 562.2

And stressing the fact that theirs was not a new or novel doctrine, Chairman Ward said: PFF4 562.3

“Sound Christians in every age have cherished it; it was the universal faith of the primitive church; it is the plain doctrine of the New Testament.” ⁸ PFF4 562.4

In the “Circular” address, unanimously adopted by the conference to give expression to their united views, the declaration was expressly made that a great “apostasy” had corrupted the faith of the early church, and darkness had “overcast the horizon of Christendom” during the Dark Ages. Thus it was that the second advent belief was obscured under the domination of the Roman bishop and church. Then the intrepid Protestant Reformers threw off the papal yoke and “revived” the earlier hope of the Lord’s return for “the overthrow of the antichrist, and the dispensation of the final judgment.” ⁹ This primary aspect of their common beliefs was thus thrust out into the forefront of discussion and emphasis. PFF4 562.5

Next, they declared that a majority in nominal Protestantism had by this time likewise “forsaken her first love, and hold the doctrine of the kingdom in this world,” but which had not been the position of the Protestant churches “until within the last century,” that is, until the Whitbyan postmillennial hypothesis developed in the eighteenth century. ¹⁰ Then the objective of the conference, duly signed by the chairman and secretary, was set forth: PFF4 562.6

“Our object in assembling at this time, our object in addressing you, and our object in other efforts, separate and combined, on the subject of ‘the kingdom of heaven at hand,’ is to revive and restore this ancient faith, to renew the ancient landmarks, to ‘stand in the ways, and see and ask for the old paths, where is the good way,’ in which our fathers walked and the martyrs ‘found rest for their souls.’ We have no purpose to distract the churches with any new inventions, or to get to ourselves a name by starting another sect among the followers of the Lamb. We neither condemn, nor rudely assail, others of a faith different from our own, nor dictate in matters of conscience for our brethren, nor seek to demolish their organizations, nor build new ones of our own; but simply to express our convictions like Christians, with the reasons for entertaining them which have persuaded us to understand the word and promises, the prophecies and the gospel, of our Lord, as the first Christians, the primitive ages of the church, and the profoundly learned and intelligent reformers, have unanimously done, in the faith and hope that the Lord will ‘come quickly,’ ‘in his glory,’ to fulfil all his promises in the resurrection of the dead.... PFF4 562.7

“Though in some of the less important views of this momentous subject we are not ourselves agreed, particularly in regard to fixing the year of Christ’s second advent, yet we are unanimously agreed and established in this all-absorbing point, that the coming of the Lord to judge the world is now specially ‘nigh at hand.’ ¹¹ PFF4 563.1

This specific statement was most significant, inasmuch as it shows that the very heart of the conference appeal was to again stand squarely on the historic premillennial platform of the purer church of the centuries, in contrast to the more recent postmillennial theory, so popular at the time. There could be no further compromise, or reconciliation, on these two opposing concepts or philosophies of redemption. Here are other key paragraphs: PFF4 563.2

“We are also agreed and firmly persuaded, that the popular theory of a thousand years, or more, of the spiritual and invisible reign of Christ ‘in this present evil world,’—where death reigns unto the coming of the Lord in his glory, is altogether unscriptural, and naturally tending to comfort sinners in their evil ways, and to dishearten the faithful; inasmuch as it takes away heavenly and eternal promises from the latter, only to convert them to the temporal use of the former, should they live, as they hope, to witness and enjoy millenial bliss in the conversion of themselves, and of this world. PFF4 563.3

“We are also agreed, that at the very commencement of the millenium the Lord will come in the glory of his Father and all the saints with him, and that the sinners then remaining alive and ungodly will be slain by the sword of the Lord, or ‘taken’ and ‘cast alive, with the beast and the false prophet, into a lake of fire burning with brimstone,’ instead of being all converted to the obedience of the gospel. PFF4 563.4

“Again, we are agreed and harmonize with the published creed of the Episcopal, Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches, together with the Cambridge Platform of the Congregational church, and the Lutheran and the Roman Catholic churches, in maintaining that Christ’s second and only coming now will be ‘to judge the world at the last day.’ PFF4 564.1

“The popular creed, that he is coming to reign invisibly and spiritually in this world, first, at least, a thousand years, is so modern that it has never gained admission into the public creed or confession of any denomination in Christendom.... PFF4 564.2

“The gracious Lord has opened to us wondrous things in his word, whereof we are glad, and in view of which we rejoice with trembling. We reverently bless his name, and we offer these things, with the right hand of our Christian fellowship and union, to all disciples of our common Lord, of every sect and denomination, praying them, by the love of the crucified Jesus, to regard ‘the promise of his coming,’ and to cultivate ‘the love of his appearing,’ and to sanctify themselves in view of his approaching with power and great glory.... PFF4 564.3

“We appeal to the sectarian standards, to history, and to the primitive churches before ‘the falling away;’ but we rely mainly on the holy oracles of divine revelation for the support of our views, convinced that the Old Testament also is able to make us wise through faith unto salvation. We deeply feel that the success of the gospel of the kingdom at hand depends on our faithful use of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; and that the secular interpretation of the Old Testament is fearfully heretical which considers it as being silent on the subject of Christ’s coining to judgment, to raise the dead, and to dispense everlasting rewards.” ¹² PFF4 564.4