Leaves the Adventist Movement
The
Millerite failure and a reconsideration of Millerite doctrine took Storrs out of the movement in 1844.[1]
While many within the Adventist community continued to respect him and consider
him a brother in Christ, many more did not. His beliefs were purposely
misrepresented and he was reviled in the Second Adventist press. This story has
dropped out of most Adventist histories. You will not find it in a recent
Advent Christian history. Even some of the older histories such as Johnson’s do
not tell it. There is an element of shame attached to it that Adventist
historians wish to bury.
Storrs entered the Millerite movement with reservations,
though we are uncertain how loudly he voiced them. He objected to Miller’s
cindered-earth doctrine:
We became convinced in the winter of ‘42 and ‘43 that
the view, held by Mr. Miller and his adherents, that this age would close with
the conflagration of the globe, and the cutting off of all men not then
prepared for immortality, and that the next age would open with the new heaven
and the new earth, with none inhabiting it but the immortal ones, was an error;
an error, too, calculated to make thinking men, who were governed more by
reason than excitement, reject the idea of the speedy advent of Christ,
altogether. They saw that much remained to be fulfilled on this earth,
and that if the conflagration of the globe was to take place at the second
advent of Christ that event could not be near.[2]
Storrs raised this objection by February or March 1843,
though we do not know how widely he voiced it. He preached in Philadelphia in the spring of 1843. Thousands heard him and
received a specially prepared edition of Six Sermons. This was one of
his first opportunities to voice his objections to Millerite theology. If he
did so, we cannot find a record of it. After preaching in Cincinnati for several months (from the Fall of 1843 into the
Spring of 1844), he returned to Philadelphia for a brief visit in December 1843. Storrs message was well received. He wrote to the editor of The
Western Midnight Cry describing the enduring interest there:
The work there is taking a new start; about 30 were forward
for prayers last Sabbath evening – some of them found peace in believing. In
this city (Philadelphia) I preached a week ago last Sabbath eve, to about
three thousand deeply interested hearers, and the cause here is evidently
rising higher and higher – no dying away. … I believe the Lord is at
the door, and we shall not have to wait long. Tell the brethren and
sisters, to be strong and fear not, for our God will come, and come quickly.[3]
Leaving Philadelphia he returned to the Midwest, evangelizing in parts of Indiana. He was in Philadelphia again in November 1844 with the Seventh-Month message
but with Literalist rather than Adventist beliefs. He remained there until
1852.[4]
The
sources of Storrs’ doctrine, who influenced whom, and many of the
details of doctrinal shifts are issues for someone else’s research. They have
little bearing on Zion’s Watch Tower’s theology.
However, we do know some things. Charles Fitch started teaching “probation for
the heathen after the Advent.” According to Lewis Gunn, at least by October
1844, some of the Philadelphia Adventists had adopted Storrs’ views. Gunn believed that “many of the Jews will be
miraculously converted, and hail His appearing with the exclamation, ‘blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’” They had, wrote Gunn, “changed
from their former belief, and differed entirely from Mr. Miller, and the great
body of advent believers in this country – but agreeing with the Literalists.”[5]
Storrs elaborated at length on his doctrine as it was in
1844 and as it, with some modifications, remained until his death. His
Literalism served as a growing wedge between him and the Adventist community:
We have since (1843) advocated the doctrine that the
advent of Christ as King … is an event nigh at hand – that it will be
ushered in with a great and terrible destruction of his enemies, especially
among those who have heard the gospel and rejected it; but that there will be “left
of the nations,” in the flesh, who will become subjects of the government of
Christ and his immortal saints, who shall then rule the nations on this earth,
having the seat of empire in Jerusalem, and on mount Zion, from whence “the
law shall go forth” to all “left of the nations.” That under this
administration “justice and judgment would be executed in the earth,” and “the
whole earth be filled with the glory of God,” according to his own oath and
promise …. That this period, or age, of the personal reign of Christ … on this
earth, is the true millennium, which may be a thousand years; or possibly
a much longer period …. That period to close with the final resurrection,
judgment, and execution of the judgment on all men: at which time
the age of the new heaven and new earth would be ushered in. … For holding such
views we have been renounced, shunned, and avoided by a large part of the
adherents of Mr. Miller’s theory, who call themselves “Adventists.”[6]
Undeniably,
Storrs was one of the leading lights in Philadelphia. Massive crowds gathered outside the Millerite chapel
to hear him and others. Every event was wildly exaggerated by the press.
Someone was reported to have stolen money from the Millerite treasury. This was
false. Children were said to have frozen to death. This was false. The
Philadelphia Ledger, appealing to its barely-literate readership, described
the Millerite gatherings with scorn, ridicule, and exaggeration.[7]
The Philadelphia Evening Chronicle reported:
Portions of the population of all the large eastern
cities in this country, have been more or less, the victims of a singular and
fantastical delusion. They call themselves Millerites, and implicitly believed
the delirious and impious ravings of one Miller, who had prophesied that the
second advent would certainly occur on the twenty-third instant, when this fair
globe would certainly be destroyed by conflagration! Here, in Baltimore, and in
Boston, the civil authorities have been compelled to close their churches by
force, in consequence of hundreds of them having assembled, and thrown the
neighbourhood into wild alarm by their yelling and howling cries and
lamentations. On the evening of the twenty-second instant, many hundreds of
these crazy people repaired to camps near this city, attired themselves in long
white cotton dresses, which they called their “ascension robes,” and were seen
wandering through the woods and on the banks of the rivers by moonlight, like
sheeted ghosts. They left their business and their families, and many children
would have perished, had it not been for the kindness of their fellow citizens.
For days this flame of dangerous superstition and enthusiasm spread like
wild-fire. There was no stopping it. In two or three instances the victims
anticipated the end of the world by suicide: one named Culp, threw himself into
the cataract of Niagara; and now that the day has passed over, many are found
to be (incurably perhaps) delirious. Such scenes … have alluded to have not
probably occurred for centuries, and I hope that centuries will again roll
away, before such sorry evidences of the weakness of human nature, and the
distress which invariably attends them, will harrow up the feelings.[8]
Almost
nothing in this article is true. The Philadelphia and Boston papers were particularly nasty, full of falsehood and
ridicule. That they dressed themselves in ascension robes and similar claims
were all false. Jane Marsh Parker, Joseph Marsh’s daughter, took pains to
refute the Ascension Robes slander. J. V. Himes did as well.[9]
Some refutation of the most scandalously false reports was made in the
Millerite press, but others wanted to make plain that those in Philadelphia were not “true” Millerites. Lewis Gunn wrote to the Philadelphia papers blaming the whole thing on Storrs and others who had adopted Literalist views:
Some … were not looking for the destruction of the
earth, nor for its complete physical renovation, at the present time; they
looked for the introduction of the millennium by the personal coming of Christ
to the earth; they think this will be the commencement of the promised
restitution of all things, to be carried forward until all things shall be made
new; they think that probation will close to those who have heard the gospel,
but not so with the heathen and all those who have not heard of his fame; they
think it will be the beginning of a new dispensation to the heathen, during
which it will be emphatically true that the leaves of the tree of life will be
for the healing of the nations. These were the published views of Geo. Storrs.
… In these views they differed entirely from Mr. Miller and the great body of
Advent believers in this country, but agreeing with the Literalists of England
(Millennarians) …[10]
By 1845 Storrs “embraced the full Literalist doctrine.” Enoch
Jacobs, editor of The Day Star (Cincinnati) wrote: “He has finally gone
off into Judaism,” Storrs made the issue clear in 1849, writing that it was “true
that we were drawn into Mr. Miller’s theory for a time, but renounced all
his peculiarities more than four years ago, and some of them more than
five years since; and have had no connection with his peculiar view for
more than four years past.” He noted that Millerite “leaders … are among our
opponents.”[11] Sometime in late May or early June 1849, two “brethren”
wrote to Storrs objecting to his comments about Millerite opposition
to his work. They defined themselves as Millerites: “We are what the world, the
church, and Br. Storrs calls Millerites. Why are we this? Is it not because we
believe with Br. Miller that the Lord is soon coming?” Storrs replied that they had misapprehended the original
article, but he also suggested that their definition of Millerite Adventism was
wrong:
Whatever the “church” or ‘the world’ may understand by
Millerism, I understand it to have three peculiarities, and nothing
more: viz. “Definite time for the advent,” …. That view I gave up in the
winter of ’44 and ’45; and time has since demonstrated that I was right in so
doing. The two other peculiarities of Millerism I gave up, one in the
month of Feb. ’44, and the other in June ’45. The three may be summed up thus,
1. “Definite time for the advent, not to go beyond ’47.” 2, “No return of the
literal posterity of Jacob to the land wherein their fathers have dwelt.” 3, “The
earth all to be melted at the time of the advent, and none of its inhabitants
left upon it.”
These three points constitute the whole of what
I call Millerism. … The second personal advent of Christ – that advent
premillennial – nigh, even at the door – the kingdom of God on earth, or the
earth the inheritance of the saints – the earth renewed, Paradise restored, and
all those kindred doctrines relating to the kingdom of God, are no part nor
parcel of Millerism: They had a distinct existence from his theory, and
before his views were published to the world. The fact that some who embraced
his theory had no knowledge that these other points had been published, by
English Literalists, years before they heard from Mr. Miller, does not make
them really any part of his peculiarities: they are not, and
never were, any of his peculiar views. … The three points I have
named are all that constitutes the peculiarities of Millerism.
The leaders in his theory did not like to retain the
name of Millerites after 1843-4 passed by, though they gloried in being
called so in those years. No sooner did the time pass away, and they
commenced the work of organizing churches, than they assumed the name of Adventists;
thus showing they were unwilling to go forward under their former one, and so
assumed that which is equally appropriate to all believers in the speedy return
of Christ and his personal reign on earth, of whom there are many who never
were Millerites. In assuming the name Adventists they wronged this
latter class of believers; who thus became, in the public mind, identified with
them; and they were as really a sect as any other. Why should they have left
the name Millerite, by which they were every where known, to assume another
without having given up one of Mr. Miller’s peculiarities? Was it to cover
their errors without “confession?” It certainly has that appearance,
whatever might have been their design.[12]
Storrs pointed back to Miller’s letter as printed in Voice
of Truth, saying that Miller and his associates, unable to fault his
reasoning, faulted him. Attacks from Millerite Adventists continued throughout Storrs’ career. Apollos Hale and Sylvester Bliss issued a
list of ten key doctrines that Storrs was supposed to have abandoned. It was largely and
knowingly false. Storrs pointed out the misrepresentation, showing that Hale
and Bliss did in fact know the truth of the matter. He called them “reckless in
a degree and to an extent that must fill every honest mind with disgust who
knows the facts.” He said that their attack “bears on the face of it the
evidence of design to stigmatise [sic] us willfully.” Storrs set what he’d actually written side by side with Hale
and Bliss’s contrivances, pointing out that they had the original article by Storrs at hand. Their behavior was inexcusable: “This effort
to blast our character and destroy our influence is not the first that has
issued from the same quarter, which has been borne in silence; and it gives us
pain to feel that duty now calls us to rebuke openly those who have sinned in
this matter. We have long time holden our peace while a stream of slander has been
poured over the land concerning us from men who, if their professions
could be relied upon, are as truly the representatives of Jesus Christ as the
Pope is of St. Peter. But God will judge between us.”[13]
James
White republished Storrs’ 1843 article on the return of the Jews in the Advent
Review and Sabbath Herald, failing to note that it was not his current
belief. “When an association, or individuals publish sentiments which the
author has publicly renounced – and give no notice of the renunciation –
all men, who have knowledge of the facts must pronounce it an act of
dishonesty,” Storrs wrote. White replied in the May 12, 1853, issue of The Review and Herald:
We much regret the date of this discourse was not
given. We also regret that we did not state that George Storrs had renounced a
portion, at least, of the truth contained in that discourse; for we never had
the least desire to conceal this fact. Our object in publishing it was for the
truth it contains …
We also much regret that the Editor of the Examiner
should so rashly charge us with “dishonesty,” and then withhold from us his
paper containing this charge. Had it not been for the kindness of a brother in Massachusetts … we might have been ignorant of the charge to this
day.
Whether the course pursued by the Examiner is,
or is not, in accordance with the gospel of Christ, we now leave the sincere to
judge.[14]
Our
historians’ sympathies rest entirely with Storrs. The Whites would gather well-deserved accusations of
plagiarism and misrepresentation throughout their careers. White’s sniffing
complaint that Storrs hadn’t sent them the issue of Bible Examiner
containing his exposure of the Review and Herald’s dishonesty was a bit
of misdirection. It blamed the wronged party for being wronged. Storrs was kinder than we are, “cheerfully” forgiving them
upon receipt of the apology.
The 1847 Speculation and Other Delusions
Millerites
were inveterate date setters. If Jesus didn’t come in 1843, then it was 1844 or
1845 or 1847. The 1847 movement was multi-faceted and complex, but most of its
history is not relevant to this discussion. Storrs reaction to it is.
As with most Adventist
speculations, the 1847 date was not original to them. William W. Pym
(1793-1852), a British expositor, suggested that the 2300 days and the seventy
weeks ended in 1847. His Word of Warning drew mention in early Millerite
periodicals.[15] Joseph Wolf, German Jew
turned Christian missionary, also focused on that date as early as 1832.[16] John Hooper, an Irvingite,
suggested that the 2300 days would end in 1847 in his book The Doctrine of
the Second Advent Briefly Stated. First published in England in 1830, an American edition was published in 1845.
In 1844 The Western Midnight Cry!!! regularly
advertised a tract by Hooper entitled The Present Crisis. Johann
Richter, a German expositor, ended several prophetic periods in 1847. Bishop
Wilson, Ferre, and others – none of them Adventists, though Adventists were
willing enough to borrow from them without credit – contributed to the
discussion.
J. V. Himes took the 1847
message to England, drawing heavily from Campbellite churches, the
source of most Millerite interest in the United Kingdom. Himes and his
British associates pointed to Alexander Campbell’s assertion that 1847 would
mark the “cleansing of the temple,” drawing a heated response from the editor
of The Christian Messenger and Family Magazine: “Campbell in his debate with Robert Owen teaches no such
doctrine as they impute to him. It is true, he refers to the cleansing of the
sanctuary about the year 1847, but his meaning of that event is very different
from the one they attach to it.”[17] This bit of obfuscation did
not serve the British Campbellites well.
In the United States new charts were made “showing wherein mistakes had
been made in calculations, and confidently predicting the end of the world
about” 1847.[18] Storrs raised a warning voice, repeating the objections to
time-speculations he made in 1845. He appealed for good sense, writing in the
August 1846, Examiner:
Nearly all the exhortations of professed “Adventists,”
to saints and sinners, to serve God, are based upon this one thing – “Do it,
for the Lord is coming – You will perish then if you do not serve him.”
Such exhortations are proper enough in their place:
but to make them the burden of our message … in my judgment is nothing
more than an appeal to the selfishness of the human heart. It seems to
say – If the Lord was not coming so soon, you need not be so particular
to serve him!
Every child of man on earth is under just as much
obligation to serve God, with all his heart, if Christ was not coming
these hundred years, as if he was coming to-day. The obligation to serve God
lies much higher than the mere fact that the day is most over. … The reaction
that will take place if ’46 and ’47 pass by as they may, without
witnessing the advent, will be disastrous beyond all conception. Experience
proves this – I mean the experience of ’43 and ’44. Where are the great
majority of those now who professedly were “aroused to serve God” as they
ought by the cry of time for the Lord’s coming? … Scarcely one in
ten of them are now found walking so as to honor their Christian profession. …
They were stimulated by wrong motives. Their selfishness was the
principal thing appealed to and excited. …
For what are Christ’s disciples left in this
world? Is it just to get safe out of it? Or, is it to glorify God
and the Lamb upon earth? … Are they under any more obligation to do it if their
Lord is to return to-day than if he was not coming for a hundred years?[19]
[1] J. Gordon Melton is in error when he suggests that Storrs
was ever a member of the Advent Christian Church. (Encyclopedia of American
Religions, page 615.)
[2] G. Storrs: The Age to Come, Bible Examiner, May 1850,
page 74.
[3] Letter from George Storrs dated November 29, 1843, found in The Western
Midnight Cry, December 9, 1843,
page 5. Storrs residence in Brooklyn
was at 62 Hicks Street. The
house still exists. Cornelia Davenport, Alexander Russell’s daughter and C. T.
Russell’s first cousin, was his neighbor living at 74 Hicks.
[4] Storrs’
itinerary is given in Six Sermons, 1856 revised edition, page 14, 17.
[5] Julia Neuffer: The Gathering of Israel: A Historical
Study of Early Writings, Digital Edition, page 4.
[6] G. Storrs: The Age to Come, Bible Examiner, May
1850, page 74.
[7] See A. S. Braham: The Philadelphia Press and the
Millerites, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, April
1954, page 189ff.
[8] As reprinted in The Christian Messenger and Reformer,
December 1844, page 205. Christian Messenger was published in London,
England.
[9] J. M. Parker: Did the Millerites Have Ascension Robes? The
Outlook: A Family Magazine, October
15, 1894, page 582-583.
[10] Wellcome, op. cit, page 382.
[11] G. Storrs: Tour East with Various Observations, Bible
Examiner, May 1849, page 73.
[12] G. Storrs: Misapprehension Corrected, Bible Examiner,
July 1849, page 106.
[13] G. Storrs: Misrepresentations Corrected, Bible Examiner,
August 1851, pages 127-128.
[14] J. White: Hear Us; Then Judge, Advent Review and Sabbath
Herald, May 12, 1853,
page 208.
[15] An American edition was published in 1839 and was mentioned
in the December 15, 1840,
issue of Signs of the Times.
[16] L. E. Froom: Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, Volume
3, page 473.
[17] James Wallis: The Christian Messenger and Family
Magazine, August 1846, page 366.
[18] Daniel McDonald, A Twentieth Century History of Marshall
County, Indiana, Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago,
1908, page 271.
[19] G. Storrs: Why Serve the Lord? as reprinted in the February 15, 1854, Bible Examiner,
page 59.
[20] A. Hale: Harmony of Prophetic Chronology, and Time of the
Advent to be Known, J. V. Himes, 1845.
[21] G. Storrs: The Second Advent of Christ, Bible Examiner,
June 1849, pages 89-90.
