Miller's Works

Miller's Works. Volume 2. Evidence from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ about the Year 1843 WILLIAM MILLER EVIDENCE from SCRIPTURE AND HISTORY of the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, about THE YEAR 1843; EVIDENCE FROM SCRIPTURE AND HISTORY OF THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, ABOUT THE YEAR 1843; EXHIBITED IN A COURSE OF LECTURES. BY WILLIAM MILLER BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOSHUA V. HINES, 14 Devonshire Street. 1842. TO ALL THEM WHO ARE LOOKING FOR THE BLESSED HOPE AND GLORIOUS APPEARING OF THE GREAT GOD, AND OUR SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST AT HAND, THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE EDITOR 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..........................................3 LECTURE 1: The Second Appearing of Christ. Titus 2:13. 11 Looking for that blessed hope, and glorious appearing of the great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ LECTURE 2: The First Resurrection. Rev. 20:6. ........28 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power-- shall reign with him a thousand years. LECTURE 3: The Two Thousand Three Hundred Days. Dan. 8:10,11. .................................................39 And he said unto me, Unto two thousand three hundred days: then shall the sanctuary be cleansed. LECTURE 4: Daniel 9:24 ...............................59 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. LECTURE 5: Pagan Rome numbered. Rev. 13:18. ..........76 And his number is six hundred threescore and six. LECTURE 6: Daniel's Vision of the Latter Days; or, An exposition of the Eleventh Chapter of Daniel. Dan 10:14. .86 Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days. LECTURE 7: Daniel's 1260, 1290, and 1335 Days explained. Daniel 12:8. .................................100 And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? LECTURE 8: The three Woe Trumpets. Rev. 8:13. .......115 Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels which are yet to sound. LECTURE 9: The Epistle to the Seven Churches of Asia, considered as applying to Seven Periods of the Gospel Church. Rev. 1:20. ......................................127 LECTURE 10: The Epistle to the Seven Churches of Asia, considered as applying to Seven Periods of the Gospel Church. Cont'd ..........................................145 LECTURE 11: The New Song. Rev. 5:9. .................161 And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God, &c. LECTURE 12: The Seven Seals, as representing Events to the End of Time. Rev. 5:5. ..............................176 Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. LECTURE 13: The Two Witnesses, as having been slain in the French Revolution. Rev. 11:3. .......................190 And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophecy 1260 days, clothed in sackcloth. LECTURE 14: The Woman in the Wilderness. Rev. 12:6. .204 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there 1260 days. LECTURE 15: The Seven Last Plagues, or Seven Vials. Rev. 16:17. .............................................219 And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air, and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying It is done. LECTURE 16: The Parable of the Ten Virgins. Matt. 25:1. 233 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. LECTURE 17: On the Punishment of the People of God Seven Times for their Sins. Lev. 26:23,24. ..............250 LECTURE 18: Solomon's Song, 8:5 .....................264 Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? LECTURE 19: Signs of the Present Times. Matt. 26:3. .283 But can ye not discern the signs of times? INTRODUCTION In presenting these Lectures to the public, the writer is only complying with the solicitations of some of his friends, who have requested that his views on the Prophecies of Daniel and John might be made public. The reader is therefore requested to give the subject a careful and candid perusal, and compare every part with the standard of Divine Truth; for if the explanations the writer has given to the scriptures under consideration should prove correct, the reader will readily perceive that it concerns us all, and becomes doubly important to us, because we live on the eve of one of the most important events ever revealed to man by the wisdom of God--the judgment of the great day. In order that the reader may have an understanding of my manner of studying the Prophecies, by which I have come to the following result, I have thought proper to give some of the rules of interpretation which I have adopted to understand prophecy. Prophetical scripture is very much of it communicated to us by figures and highly and richly adorned metaphors; by which I mean that figures such as beasts, birds, airor wind, water, fire, candlesticks, lamps, mountains, islands, etc., are used to represent things prophesied of -- such as kingdoms, warriors, principles, people, judgments, churches, word of God, large and smaller governments. It is metaphorical also, showing some peculiar quality of the thing prophesied of, by the most prominent feature or quality of the figure used, as beasts--if a lion, power and rule; if a leopard, celerity; if a bear, voracious; and ox, submissive; a man, proud and independent. Fire denotes justice and judgment in its figure; in the metaphor, denotes the purifying or consuming up the dross or wickedness; as fire has a cleansing quality, so will the justice or judgments of God. "For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." Therefore almost all the figures 4 used in prophecy have their literal and metaphorical meaning; as beasts denote, literally, a kingdom, so metaphorically good or bad, as the case may be, to be understood by the subject in connection. To understand the literal meaning of figures used in prophecy, I have pursued the following method: -- I find the word "beast" used in a figurative sense; I take my concordance, trace the word, and in Daniel 7:17, it is explained to mean "kings or kingdoms." Again, I come across the words "bird or fowl," and in Isa. 46:2, it is used, meaning a conqueror or warrior,--Cyrus. Also, in Ezekiel 39:4-9, denotes armies or conquerors. Again, the words "air or wind." as used in Rev. 9:2, and 16, 17, to understand which I turn to Eph 2:2, and 4-14, and there learn that is used as a figure to denote the theories of worldly men or vain philosophy. Again, "water or rivers" are used as figures in Rev. 17:13, it is explained to mean "peoples or nations." "Rivers" of course mean the nation or people living on the river mentioned, as in Rev. 16: 12. "Fire" is often used in a figurative sense; explained in Num. 21:27, 28, Deut. 32:22, Psal. 78:21, Heb. 12:29, to mean justice and judgment. As prophecy is a language somewhat different from other parts of Scripture, owing to its having been revealed in vision, and that highly figurative, yet God in his wisdom has so interwoven the several prophecies, that the events foretold are not all told by one prophet, and although they lived and prophesied in different ages of the world, yet they tell us the same things; so you take away one, and a link will be wanting. There is a general connection through the whole; like a well-regulated community they all move in unison, speaking the same things, observing the same rules, so that a Bible reader may almost with propriety suppose, let him read in what prophecy he may, that he is reading the same prophet, the same author. This will appear evident to any one who will compare scripture with scripture. For example, see Dan. 12:1, Matt. 24:21, Isa. 47:8, Zeph. 2:15, Rev. 18:7. There never was a book written that has a better connection and harmony than the Bible, and yet it has the appearance of a great store-house full of all the precious commodities heart could desire, thrown in promiscuously; therefore, the biblical student must select and bring together every part of the subject he wishes to investigate, from every part of the Bible; then let every word have its own Scripture meaning, every sentence its proper bearing, and have no contradiction, and your theory will and must of necessity be correct. Truth is. 5 one undeviating path, that grows brighter and brighter the more it is trodden; it needs no plausible arguments nor pompous dress to make it more bright, for the more naked and simple the fact, the stronger the truth appears. Let it be noticed that God has revealed to his prophets the same events in divers figures and at different times, as he has to Daniel in the second, seventh, and eighth chapters concerning the four kingdoms; or to Peter, (see Acts 10:16;) also Isaiah and John.

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