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WILLIAM MILLER

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Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 31, 1856

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 7, No. 18.

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WILLIAM MILLER.

HIS TREATMENT OF OPPONENTS—SPECIMENS OF HIS PREACHING.

MR MILLER did not consider that his reviewers always treated him and his arguments with the utmost fairness; and, in speaking of them, he sometimes retorted in terms of great severity. Considering his treatment, by the religious and secular press, and the contumely which was incessantly heaped on him, that he should, at times, manifest a degree of impatience, was more an occasion of regret than of surprise. Few men have been called to endure so great an amount of reproach as fell to his lot; and few could have endured it as he did. He was human, and shared in all the weaknesses common to humanity; but, whenever he failed to endure the smart of undeserved wounds with all the sweetness of gospel charity, no one more sincerely regretted it than he did; and his liability to err in this respect was with him a subject of many prayers and tears.
His severity, however, was often richly merited; and he knew how to be severe, without being uncourteous. Those who used their learning to fritter away the plain meaning of Scripture, and to make it teach something which the common reader would never have perceived in it,—merely for the purpose of opposing his conclusion,—he had little inclination to spare.
In speaking of the 8th chapter of Daniel, and the question, "How long shall be the vision?" he says, "The answer is, 'Unto 2300 days.'"
"But," says the critic, "it is 'evenings-mornings.'"
"No matter: all men seem to understand it days; for it is so translated in every language with which we are acquainted at the present day. Therefore, this can never be made plainer, if this compound Hebrew word should be criticized upon until the judgment shall set. I am sick of this continual harping upon words. Our learned critics are worse on the waters of truth than a school of sharks on the fishing banks of the North, and they have made more infidels in our world than all the heathen mythology in existence. What word in revelation has not been turned, twisted, racked, wrested, distorted, demolished, and annihilated by these voracious harpies in human shape, until the public have become so bewildered they know not what to believe! 'They have fouled the waters with their feet.' I have always noticed where they tread the religious spirit is at a low ebb; it becomes cold, formal, and doubtful, at least. It is the mind of the Spirit we want, and God's word then becomes spirit and life unto us.
"The words 'evenings-mornings' convey to our mind the idea of days; thus the vision is 2300 days long," says the reader.
"Yes. But how can all this be?" says the inquiring mind. "Can three kingdoms rise up and become great; from a small people become a strong nation; conquer all the nations of the earth, and then, in its turn, be subdued and conquered by a kingdom still more fortunate; and so on through three successive kingdoms, and do this in little over six years? Impossible."
"But God has said it, and I must believe. Now the only difficulty is in time."
"How can this be?"
"Very well," says the dear child of God; "I remember me: God says I must 'dig for the truth as for hid treasure.' I will go to work, and while I am digging, I will live by begging. Father in heaven, I believe it is thy word; but I do not understand it; show me thy truth."
"I had rather have one humble prayer of this kind, with an English Bible in my hand, than all the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin Bro. S. ever knew."
"The child then takes the word day, and compares spiritual things with spiritual, to find what his heavenly Father means by days in a figurative sense. The first text he lights upon is in Num. xiv, 34, 'each day for a year.'"
"May this not be it?" says the child.
"He takes hold of it by faith, carries it home, lays it up in his cell of sweets, richer than a lord, and again goes forth in search of more. He now lights upon Eze. iv, 6: 'I have appointed thee each day for a year.' He is now rich in very deed—two jewels in one cell. He does not stop to criticize like a Stuart, and query, and reason himself out of common sense and reason too; but Abraham-like, he believes, and lays up his treasure at home."
"I see," says the child, "this use of days was so ordained by my Father in two cases; and two witnesses are enough. But I am not certain that I have a right to use these jewels in this place. I will go and beg, and dig again."
"In this excursion he lights on Dan. ix, 23-27: 'Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people.'"
"Seventy weeks of what?" says the critic.
"I do not care a fig," says the believing child, "whether you call it days or years: I know how long it was in fulfilling."
"How long?"
"Exactly four hundred and ninety years: from the decree given in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, four hundred and fifty-seven years before Christ, unto his death, thirty-three years after the birth of Christ, making exactly four hundred and ninety years, or seventy sevens of years of the vision."
Prof. Stuart having applied the days in Daniel 12th to the times of Antiochus, when the context shows that the resurrection will follow their termination, Mr. Miller said:
"Suppose Prof. Stuart had been a believing Jew, and lived in the time of Antiochus, and had been of the same mind he is now, or says he is, and one of his brother Jews had come along and prophesied or preached that the Jews were to be a scattered and a peeled people, dashed and scattered among all nations, more than two thousand years, then to come; and suppose the professor had been then an expounder of the law and the prophets, and was called upon to explain this text as being then fulfilled, what would he say to his brother Jew, the prophet? He would say as any man must say by him:
"Sir, you are a false prophet; for God has told us plainly, in this very text, that when this three and a half years are fulfilled under which we are now groaning, then our scattering or dashing will be accomplished—yes, and finished too. So says the Word. Therefore do you keep away from my flock of Pharisees, for I do not want my people excited by your false, alarming doctrine. Do you not see that, at the end of 1335 days, Daniel will stand in his lot? And do you not see, sir, that his standing in his lot means the resurrection? Read the first three verses of this chapter."
"Ah," says the prophet, "that does not mean the resurrection, but—"
"But what?" says the professor.
"O! I do not know—difficult to understand," says the prophet.
"I see," says the professor, "you are a Sadducee. You do not understand either the Hebrew or the Chaldaic, or the exegesis of the Scriptures. How dare you prophesy evil of this nation, when God hath spoken peace after these days? I say you are a Sadducee. I will have no fellowship with you. You must not come into my synagogue."
"Would not this be the natural result of such a case? I leave it for the reader to judge."
"Or, suppose that the professor was now in controversy with a Jew,—a Sadducee,—and was under the necessity of proving the doctrine of the resurrection by the Old Testament, would he not put into requisition this very text, and prove by the same a resurrection unto eternal life; and, if he did not believe such plain and positive proof as these texts would be, would he not consider him a poor, blinded Sadducee? Let us be careful that our own mouths do not condemn us."
"If, then, these days can only end with the resurrection, it is impossible that these Scriptures can apply to Antiochus. And, as the rules which he has given us in his Hints are the same, in substance, which I was forced to adopt more than twenty years ago, I cannot believe that Antiochus Epiphanes is even hinted at from Dan. xi, 14, to the end of the 12th chapter. And, if the prophecy does not belong to Antiochus, then he must acknowledge that the little horn can apply only to the Papal power; and must agree with nearly all Protestant writers that 'time, times, and a half,' are, together with theother numbers in this chapter, to be understood in a symbolical sense."—Life of William Miller.