Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Leaders Did Not Restudy Key Prophecy

The Millerite leadership in general did not seek to find an explanation for their disappointment by a re-examination of the words of the prophecy of the 2300 days. They were still sure the coming of the bridegroom was the second coming of Christ in glory, and that the cleansing of the sanctuary involved the destruction of the world by fire. Neither event had taken place. Therefore, they concluded, they must look to the future for the coming of the bridegroom and the cleansing of the sanctuary. EGWC 168.4

That conclusion carried with it, of course, the inevitable decision that the seventh-month movement—which was the climax of the whole Millerite movement—was not of God, and that at best it was a theological delusion. EGWC 169.1

With Miller, Himes, and other prominent leaders taking this position, it is no surprise that the great body of Adventists accepted this view. But if the midnight cry, the shutting of the door, and the cleansing of the sanctuary were still in the future, it was most natural that new dates would be set, and set they were. It should ever be said to the credit of Miller and Himes and a few other key men like them, that they were most restrained in this matter. But Miller was growing old and feeble—he died in 1849—and neither Himes nor any other leader was strong enough to hold the movement together. ^* A variety of dates was set by different men, with the result that this or that little group among the Adventists was repeatedly brought to the point of expectation only to be disappointed again, with all that such continued disappointments could do to the faith of trusting, believing people. EGWC 169.2

The keystone of the whole structure of the Advent movement, from the day that William Miller first went out to preach, had been the prophecy of the 2300 days, with its climax, the cleansing of the sanctuary. But in order for that great Bible time prophecy to have meaning, it had to have a time of beginning; hence the endeavor that had been made by Miller and all other leaders in the movement to discover the time when this prophecy should start. They held that the 70-week period was the first part of the 2300-day prophecy. This led them to conclude that the beginning date was 457 B.C. Hence the ending was patently A.D. 1844. EGWC 169.3