Memoirs of William Miller - Sylvester Bliss

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.
“Thus all those passages that speak of the will
of God being done on earth as in heaven, of the
earth being full of the knowledge of the glory of
God, etc., could not be applicable to a time when
the Man of Sin was prevailing against the saints, or
when the righteous and wicked were dwelling
together, which is to be the case until the end of the
world. Those which speak of the gospel being
preached in all the world, teach that, as soon as it
should be thus preached, the end was to come; so
that it could not be delayed a thousand years from
that time, nor long enough for the world’s
conversion after the preaching of the gospel as a
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