Sketches of the Christian life and public labors of William Miller : $b Gathered from his memoir by the late Sylvester Bliss, and from other sources — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Sketches of the Christian life and public labors of William Miller : $b Gathered from his memoir by the late Sylvester Bliss, and from other sources
John Stuart Mill · en
“‘With the solemn conviction,’ writes Mr. Miller, ‘that such
momentous events were predicted in the Scriptures, to be
fulfilled in so short a space of time, the question came home
to me with mighty power regarding my duty to the world, in
view of the evidence that had affected my own mind. If the
end was so near, it was important that the world should know
it. I supposed that it would call forth the opposition of the
ungodly; but it never came into my mind that any Christian
would oppose it. I supposed that all such would be so rejoiced,
in view of the glorious prospect, that it would only be
necessary to present it, for them to receive it. My great fear
was that in their joy at the hope of a glorious inheritance
so soon to be revealed, they would receive the doctrine
without sufficiently examining the Scriptures in demonstration
of its truth. I therefore feared to present it, lest, by
some possibility, I should be in error, and be the means of
misleading any.
“‘Various difficulties and objections would arise in my mind
from time to time; certain texts would occur to me which seemed
to weigh against my conclusions; and I would not present a view
to others, while any difficulty appeared to militate against
it. I therefore continued the study of the Bible, to see if I
could sustain any of these objections. My object was not merely
to remove them, but I wished to see if they were valid.
“‘Sometimes, when at work, a text would arise like this:
“Of that day and hour knoweth no man,” &c.; and how, then,
could the Bible reveal the time of the advent? I would then
immediately examine the context in which it was found, and I
saw at once that, in the same connection, we are informed how
we may know when it is nigh, even at the doors; consequently,
that text could not teach that we could know nothing of the
time of that event. Other texts, which are advanced in support
of the doctrine of a temporal millennium, would arise; but on
examining their context, I invariably found that they were
applicable only to the eternal state, or were so illustrative
of the spread of the gospel here as to be entirely irrelevant
to the position they were adduced to support.