Introduction

It is generally accepted that postmillennialism¹ has reigned as the dominant eschatological view since the Reformation. In America, most theologians from the Reformed and Puritan traditions encountered in postmillennialism the rationale to encourage Christian ethic of living, revivalism, and worldwide evangelism. These theologians envisioned a millennial kingdom where the church and the state would create a political, social, and religious Christian order.

Different from postmillennialists, premillennial thinkers expected deeper deterioration of the social and religious order. Premillennial views² generally have a less positive assessment of humanity and its organizations, like the church and society. Human sinfulness, general corruption in government, and moral deterioration of society seem to indicate that the Church is incapable of transforming the present order of things. Consequently, premillennialist believe in the necessity of the heavenly intervention of Christ in his second coming.

Although scholars commonly claim that William Miller was the first consistent premillennialist of his time,³ this paper will argue that Miller belonged to a religious milieu where several non-conformist theologians and pastors refused to speculate regarding the future and defended a strong premillennial view. Like Miller, without dismissing the value of revival and evangelism, they became convinced that both the biblical teaching and the evil of the present social order pointed to the second coming of Christ as the unique solution to the human problems. It is the main objective of this paper to explore some of the key premillennial figures and their teachings during the Second Great Awakening specifically from 1790 to 1840. This paper will delimit its focus to only two aspects of Millerite-era premillennialism: the importance given by those premillennialists to the second coming of Jesus and their view of the nature of the millennium. It is beside the goal of this presentation to specifically explore the events before, during, and after the millennium, such as the last judgment or the role of the Jews. The paper concludes by exploring the possible implications of premillennial teaching during the Great Awakening by the preachers of the Millerite movement and presents a series of questions that seem to need further scholarly exploration.

Millennial Thought in the Second Great Awakening

The expectation of the second coming of Jesus Christ as the apex of a final triumph of the son of righteousness over the forces of darkness was an integral part of the religious and intellectual culture of New England. Several of the earliest publications in America advocated a premillennial view that anticipated the second coming of Jesus, the destruction of the Antichrist (commonly identified as the Papacy), and the resurrection of the righteous followed by the inauguration of an earthly kingdom of God for one thousand years.⁴ Between 1642 and 1710, for instances, American theologians like John Cotton (1585–1652), Thomas Parker (1595–1677), and Increase Mather⁵ (1639– 1723) published several works voicing their premillennial hope.⁶ Parker took it further and suggested that the prophecies of Daniel clearly pointed to 1859 as the probable year for the second coming and the end of the world.⁷

However, the religious opinion regarding the millennium came to change in the American colonies when postmillennialism became a prominent theological and socio-political view in the context of the first and the second great awakening. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), a prominent theologian and revivalist, articulated the fulfillment of the postmillennial hope as a cooperative work of the supernatural empowerment of the Holy Spirit and the “ordinary means of grace” entrusted to the Christian church. He explained: “This is a work that will be accomplished . . . by the preaching of the gospel, and the use of the ordinary means of grace, and so shall be gradually brought to pass.”⁸ According to Edwards, the Holy Spirit and the Church will cooperate to do “this great work of God . . . though very swiftly, yet gradually.”⁹

Second Great Awakening revivalist Charles Finney (1792–1875), like Edward during the first awakening, passionately promoted evangelism, repentance, conversion, and social reforms as means of advancing the millennium of sabbatical peace and harmony. In a significant encounter with William Miller (1782–1849) Finney emphasized that the stone of Daniel 2:34 was “not Christ, but the kingdom of God; and that the prophet there represented the Church which was set up, as demolishing the image.”¹⁰ In Finney’s view, “the influence of the Church” and the “enlightenment of the Gospel” will destroy the governments of this world. Christ was not coming in person; rather, he was working through His church to bring about the millennial hope.¹¹

Because postmillennialism turned out to be the revivalists’ hope, recent studies on millennialism in America seems to give the impression that premillennialism disappeared from the American religious thought until after the Civil War. George Marsden declares that postmillennialism was “by far the prevalent view among American evangelicals between the Revolution and the Civil War.”¹² In the best case, Miller and his Second Advent movement are often regarded as a solitary and anomalistic premillennial voice of the time. However, the premillennial voice of the Puritan divines in the early American colonies found receptive ears in several nonconformist Christian religious groups and theologians within the Second Great Awakening.

Premillennialism in the Second Great Awakening

Thomas Hartley’s (c. 1709–1784) Paradise restored: or, a testimony to the doctrine of the blessed millennium: with some considerations on its approaching advent from the signs of the times published in 1764, together with Joseph Mede’s (1586–1639) and Isaac Newton’s (1643–1727) books,¹³ was one of the most influential works to kindle the premillennial hope during the religious awakenings in America. In his work, Hartley insists in a personal, literal, and visible kingdom of God with his church on earth.¹⁴ It is at this point, after the second coming of Christ, that the Church composed by all “blessed converts, both Jewish and Gentiles . . . scattered over the face of the whole earth” will receive the manifestation of its glorious state and promises.¹⁵ Under the visible government of Christ, during this “grand Sabbath of rest”,¹⁶ the world will experience “peace, and unity” in the natural and moral order.¹⁷

The second coming will reveal the visible kingdom of God and fulfill the complete union of Jesus with his Church.¹⁸ Unfortunately, Hartley argued, his postmillennial contemporaries expanded the spiritual kingdom of Jesus already present in the “militant” church by his Holy Spirit into the millennial kingdom on earth of the “triumphant” church by spiritualizing both the millennium and the second coming of Christ.¹⁹ Differently, Hartley contended, it is a “triumphant” Christ over all the evilness, miseries, sins, the kingdoms of the world, and the Antichrist that will joyfully and literally reign on earth together with his saints.²⁰

Hartley significantly influenced Joseph Priestly (1733–1804), a scientist and controversial Unitarian preacher.²¹ Priestly asserted that the millennial kingdom “of truth and righteousness, will not be established without the general convulsions, and the violent overthrow of other kingdoms.”²² Priestly carefully explored the prophecies of Daniel 2, 7, 8, and 12 to demonstrate that the divine kingdom will not be inaugurated until all the kingdoms of this world are completely destroyed by the second coming of Jesus.²³ Instead of gradual improvement on nature and moral, Priestly said that the biblical record speaks of physical, political, social, and religious turmoil; like illness, wars, revolutions, sectarianism, and chaos.²⁴ Then, “the antichristian power [the little horn] is to be destroyed at [the] second coming of Christ, and not properly before, and therefore that its final destruction will be sudden, is evident from what the apostle says . . . [in] 2 Thess. 2:8.”²⁵

Priestly, like Hartley before him, made the beginning of the Millennium coincidental with the visible and personal second coming and the resurrection of the righteousness.²⁶ He also expected an earthly kingdom of Christ together with the Church. However, varying from Hartley, he added a new perspective integrating a universal restoration of the Jews in a prominent place as people of God. This means, he the complete fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecies regarding the people of Israel.²⁷

Samuel Miller (1769–1850), a Presbyterian minister in New York, also abandoned all hope of a probable establishment of the Messiah’s kingdom by ecclesiastical and social reforms. Ruth H. Bloch comments that Miller came to carefully discriminate the significant differences between Christian’s theology of the last days and the “enlightenment theories of human perfectibility that had arisen in France.”²⁸ For Miller, the last days will be characterized by “irreligion, disorder, and violence.” He found no hope in humans as possible builders of a temporal millennium of peace because “the evil has gone too far to be remedied without means as grievous as the disease.”²⁹ For Miller, only the second coming of Christ and the consequent establishment of “the universal reign of righteousness and peace” will ensure the transition of the church from a militant to a triumphant state.³⁰ Hoping the institution of such a kingdom by any kind of human means was completely illusory and vain.³¹

Interestingly, both Priestly and Miller developed their millennial views as part of a sharp critique of the atheistic ideas of the Enlightenment.³² It is important to remark, however, that critiques and reactions against the evilness of the French revolution and its naturalistic philosophy appear from the pen of both premillennialists and postmillennialists.³³ Nevertheless, in the view of some premillennialists, the postmillennialists have embraced some of the features of the Enlightenment philosophers and French revolutionaries such as the belief that humans are capable to restore peace, morality, and justice; although assisted by God, it is mainly by their own efforts. In many ways, it was a compromised eschatology that combined the characteristic confidence in human and social progress with a triumphalist ecclesiology and a biblical theology of empowerment of the Holy Spirit of the Christian community.³⁴ For the postmillennial thinkers, this divine empowerment of the church to bring about historical transformation of the world goes beyond the boundaries of the spiritual realm into the dominion of society and politics.

Premillennialists, at the time, strongly disagreed with this perspective. Leroy E. Froom in the volume 3 of his massive work The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers: The Historical Development of Prophetic Interpretation discussed the contribution of several “witnesses” of the premillennial hope in the time frame of 1790– 1830.³⁵ Froom mentioned William Linn (1752–1808), Joshua Spalding (1760–1825), David Austin (1760–1831), and Timothy Dwight, president of Yale and grandson of Edwards.³⁶

Although Froom’s work remains as one of the broadest expositions on the history of prophetic interpretation in general and the millennialism in America in particular, it seems to me that some sections of the work on the witness of premillennialism are in need of scholarly clarification and correction. For instance, Froom identified Timothy Dwight (1752–1817) as “strictly premillennialist.”³⁷ However, current scholarship claims that he was in reality “a leading American postmillennialist . . . [who] believed the church was succeeding in bringing the Kingdom of Christ on earth.”³⁸ C. C. Goen affirms that Dwight, like many others, was “content to follow [his] master, [Jonathan Edwards], in eschatology.”³⁹ Froom seemed to understand Dwight’s references to the returning of Christ and the consequent destruction of the Antichrist as a literal and historical reference to the appearance of Jesus in his second coming. Jack Blanco rightly affirms, I think, that Dwight was referring to “the Whitbyan ‘spiritual’ Advent of Christ, not His literal Advent.”⁴⁰

Froom, however, was accurate in his identification of Spalding as an “ardent premillennialist” and his work as “staunchly premillennialist.”⁴¹ In this case, Froom based his conclusions in an analysis of Spalding’s theology as well as the great appreciation that Millerites like Joshua V. Himes showed for Spalding’s book Sentiments, Concerning the Coming and Kingdom of Christ (1796).⁴² In a series of nine lectures Spalding exposed a biblical case in favor of the visible and literal second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the saints, the millennial and earthly kingdom of Christ, and the final restitution of all things.⁴³ The premillennial coming of the Lord will be motive of joy and the fulfillment of the most cherished Christian hope and expectation. At this moment, Spangling argued, the Christ of the cross will become the Christ of throne.⁴⁴ In his coming, Christ destroys the Antichrist who has reigned by false pretenses of righteousness, but in reality, promoting wickedness and abominations.⁴⁵ Spangling equated the millennium with the literal reality of the New Jerusalem and the new earth and heaven.⁴⁶ Christ together with all the saints and the Jews will inaugurate a millennial and literal kingdom of peace and justice, where the corruptions will be no more Spangling noted in his lectures.⁴⁷

In summary, several preachers and theologians sustained a premillennial view of the second coming of Jesus Christ during the Second Great Awakening. Many of them also called upon their congregations to spiritually prepare because the “kingdom of heaven is at hand.”⁴⁸ Although it seems that Hartley’s premillennial views were an important influence to revitalize this teaching during this period in America, the premillennialism analyzed above is akin with the doctrine of the Millennium that prevailed in the first centuries of Christianity, commonly identified as historic premillennialism.⁴⁹ As we have seen, all the exponents of premillennialism in America during this period expected a literal and visible second coming of Christ followed by the destruction of the Antichrist, the resurrection of the righteousness, and the inauguration of the earthly and millennial kingdom of Christ.

The Millerite Movement and Premillennialism: An Exploration for Research

Evidently, William Miller and his preachers were not the first nor the last to expose a premillennial view of the second coming of Jesus in America. However, they were the responsible for popularizing premillennialism at the end of the Second Great Awakening between 1830–1844 d.C. In significant ways, Miller’s message of the literal and second coming of Jesus was more vocal, populist, imaginative, and biblical grounded than the more academic work of his premillennialist contemporaries.

“For if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for battle” (1 Cor. 14:8). Miller was particularly adamant to present a message that would in any degree mislead his followers regarding the certainty of the second coming and the blessed millennium. In his messages, Miller insisted that the eternal peace and joy of the millennium will come only by means of divine intervention. The only role of God’s people was to live a life of holiness in preparation for the encounter with God. Similar to his revivalist and postmillennial contemporaries, Miller envisioned a radical change in love, spiritual life, and relationship with the Lord amongst believers. He could sound pretty similar to Finney in his call for repentance and conversion and in his denunciation of the national sins.⁵⁰ However, while for the postmillennial this reality was to spiritually and socially empower the faithful and the church to bring about the universal and earthly Kingdom of the Church in the millennium; for Miller this was only a mean to personal and corporative preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. While for Finney, national and personal sins hindered the inauguration of the earthly millennial kingdom, but for Miller, sins were the ultimate barrier for a personal and eschatological encounter with God.⁵¹

It is in this historical context that Miller and his preachers challenged the postmillennialist status quo with an audacious premillennial scheme. Miller wrote,

You may depend upon it my friends, that Jesus will come . . . in the year 1843 or before; in that year the prophecies will be completed the dead Saints or bodies will rise, those children of God who are alive then, will be changed, and caught up to meet the Lord in the air, where they will be Married to him. The World and all the Wicked will be burnt up, (not annihilated) and then Christ will descend and reign personally with his Saints; and at the end of the 1000 Years the wicked will be raised, judged and sent to everlasting punishment (this is the second Death) [sic].⁵²

In addition to this affirmation, Miller constantly described the historical situation of the world previous to the second coming. Different to his postmillennial contemporaries, Miller presented a panorama of social and religious disorder and evilness. For instance, he observed that an ordinary observation of the religious groups of his days would sufficiently demonstrate that “the temporal millennium is receding rather than advancing; confusion and anarchy are now [present] in the ranks of all sects, and disunion and division have broken the bonds and removed the most ancient landmarks among them.”⁵³

Like Miller, Charles Fitch apologetically rejected the general postmillennial view of his time. He said,

The sound scriptural doctrine of the personal reign of Christ on David’s throne cannot now be endured [by the Protestant Church], and hence the teachers which the various sects have been heaping to themselves have turned away their ears to the groundless fable of a spiritual reign of Christ, during what is called a temporal millennium, when they expect the world to be converted; and each sect is expecting at that time to have the predominant influence.”⁵⁴

Several points are worth noting about these Millerite descriptions of the millennium. First, Miller and preachers of the Second Advent movement anticipated in their messages a bodily and literal return of Jesus Christ. It is, in their view, the second coming the event that inaugurates the millennial kingdom.⁵⁵ Second, they clearly connect the time before and after the millennium with a specific succession of events: 1) general deterioration of the moral, social, and religious order; 2) Christ’s visible coming; 3) resurrection of the just; 4) victory over the Antichrist, 5) destruction by fire of the present order; 6) millennial and literal reign of Christ; and 7) final judgment. Miller did not specifically discuss the events during the millennial kingdom. He limited himself to affirm that the millennium entails a literal kingdom of Christ on earth, the total restoration of the earth, and the regeneration and glorification of all saints at the time to reign with Christ.⁵⁶

It seems to me, at this point of my research, that Miller and his preachers were exponents of a historical premillennialism akin in some respects to the views of their contemporaries. Evidently, they had certain differences. For instance, Miller differed from both his premillennialist and his postmillennialist contemporaries in that Miller did not envision a restoration of the Jews as special people of God in the last days of the world.⁵⁷ The millennial kingdom in a restored earth will be a joyful state for all faithful believers throughout the history of the world. Obviously, this claim has to be further explored and tested.

Therefore, there are a series of historical and theological questions that arise from my introductory exploration: First, how did the work of premillennialist theologians and preachers during the Second Great Awakening influence Miller and his preachers? Froom presented a line of premillennial thinkers, but he does not make direct connections between Miller’s ideas and those of his predecessors. He generally expressed the points of connections between premillennialist and postmillennialist in general, but he did not make comments on previous works influencing Miller’s conclusions.⁵⁸ Rather, he accepted a priori, Miller’s testimony about his method of study in which commentaries or previous opinions did not played a role.⁵⁹ Similarly, David L. Rowe recognizes that Miller at least had read George Faber and Thomas Newton’s commentaries, but downplays the importance of possible influences of these commentaries on Miller’s thought. Rather, he privileges the influence on Miller’s beliefs from radical religious movement, current political struggles, the popular apocalypticism of the epoch, and history.⁶⁰ Likewise, Knight only discusses premillennial thought during the Second Great Awakening as a contextual history of ideas prior to the Millerite movement. However, he does not make further connections between Miller and his contemporaries premillennialist.⁶¹

Second, in which specific points did Miller reach different conclusions regarding the nature of the millennium and the events surrounding it from his contemporaries? And what precise sort of premillennial view does Miller uphold? It seems to me that the main difference, beside the Jewish question, between Miller’s views and his premillennial contemporaries was on the analysis and exposition of the biblical time prophecies. It is not that only Miller came about with a time for the second coming and the inauguration of the millennium. However, it was only Miller who exposed a completely and coherent chart of dates and prophetic fulfillments like the one pictured in the 1843 chart. Nevertheless, at this moment of my research, I do not yet have all the evidence to sufficiently argue for this explanation.

These questions are particularly important because as early as 1888, supporters of premillennialism like S. H. Kellogg, not an Adventist, questioned Miller’s premillennialist teachings.⁶² Kellogg affirmed, “Miller was not a premillennialist, in the sense in which the term is now commonly used.”⁶³ However, he offers little explanation to support his claim; the only presented evidence is the time setting for the second coming of Jesus, which is a characteristic of the Millerite movement. Obviously, in order to properly understand Kellogg’s comment, it would be necessary to explore what the term “premillennialism” meant to him and those he was aligned with, in 1888.⁶⁴ Knight asserts, “Presbyterian, Congregational, and Episcopalian ‘literalistic’ premillennialism in the United States” as well as in Britain “failed to find enough common ground to enable them to work together.”⁶⁵ Unfortunately, similar to Kellogg, Knight does not elaborate in the specifics of his assertion.

Finally, after completing a research on the questions expressed above and reaching satisfactory answers, it seems important to ask: how our current views of the millennium as Seventh-day Adventists and spiritual heirs of the Millerite movement concur with or differ from those of Miller’s? What are the implications for our history of doctrine as well as for our eschatological teachings?

Conclusions

Postmillennialism certainly spoke powerfully in the context of the Second Great Awakening. It appealed to the best sentiments of the culture and progressive views of humanity and society of the time, while at the same time integrated some of the biblical hope of a new reality and the universal kingdom of Christ.⁶⁶ Premillennialists, however, strayed from reducing the Christian hope on the second coming of Jesus to a celebratory ceremony in a restored earthly and a prepared kingdom by human hands. Our introductory study hopefully demonstrates that Priestly, Samuel Miller, Spangling, and many others expected a literal and visible second coming of Jesus to restore the present order, prepare the new earth and heavens, and inaugurate a kingdom of justice and peace. In the mist of rampant postmillennial excitement of the Second Great Awakening, premillennial voices continued calling attention to the sinful reality of the world and the necessity to personal and spiritually preparation for the second coming of Christ.

Miller was one of those voices. He prophetically and apologetically pointed to the postmillennial message as dangerous for the faith and the eternal security of believers. In his view, the postmillennial message that entailed a false security and a naïve hope in the power of humanity for the good. In this regard, he was close to the message of his premillennial contemporaries. As we have seen, although some explicit differences like the role of the Jews in the millennial kingdom, Miller’s message seems to resonate in many instances with that of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, there still remains a need to further explore the contributions of premillennialists during the Second Great Awakening to the religious, social, and political reality of the time. It also seems necessary to further explore the influence, if any, of these thinkers on Miller and his Second Advent Movement.