1856 TIME OF THE END. Ambitious Adventist Eschatology with Elaborate Prophetic Chart &c.

One of the most ambitious eschatological publications of the 19th century, this 1856 prophetic anthology signaled a significant shift in American eschatology. Appearing roughly a decade after the 1844 Great Disappointment, it served as a critical transitional bridge between Millerite Adventism and the emerging premillennialist and dispensationalist consensus that later fueled the Niagara Prophecy Conferences and formed modern dispensationalist and premillennial approaches to the end times..

In the wake of William Miller's failed predictions, prophetic study faced widespread evangelical ridicule. Convinced that Miller was 90% right, the present volume worked to legitimize the general approach of the adventists by arguing that flawed calculations were simply part of the gradual unsealing of Daniel's scroll in the end times; a mistake which would not be made again. By compiling writings from respected, mainstream figures like John Wesley, Thomas Chalmers, and geologist Edward Hitchcock alongside prominent British historicists E. B. Elliott and John Cumming, the publisher aimed to prove that premillennialism was an orthodox Protestant heritage rather than an isolated, fanatical heresy, and that any hint of its former "enthusiastic" tendencies would be snuffed out. The newly broadened millennialist movement shifted away from rigid date-setting toward a more generalized prophetic calendar that anticipated the end to likely occur between 1830 and 1880.

Importing these influential British scholars accelerated the adoption of British prophetic thought in America, laying early groundwork for the transition from classic historicism to Darbyite dispensationalism. Crucially, the text launched a direct assault on the dominant postmillennial Whitbyan theory, which held that human progress and church effort would usher in a thousand years of peace before Christ's return. By compiling over one hundred historical witnesses advocating for a pre-millennial advent, the book provided the core theological arguments later adopted by Niagara leaders like James H. Brookes to insist that the world was deteriorating and required Christ's literal return to set up His kingdom, and which still reverberate from conservative Evangelical and Fundamentalist pulpit and press today.

Scarce. 

The Time of the End: A Prophetic Period, Developing, as Predicted, an Increase of Knowledge Respecting the Prophecies and Periods that foretell the End: Illustrated by the History of Prophetic Interpretation, the Expectation of the Church, and the Various Computations of the Times of Daniel and John, by Commentators, who Generally Terminate them between A. D. 1830 and 1880. Also, Our Present Position in the Prophetic Calendar, with his "Apocalyptic Seven-Sealed Scroll," by E. B. Elliott; Lectures on the Nature and Nearness of the Advent, by Rev. John Cumming; Lectures on the New Heavens and New Earth by Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Hitchcock, and John Wesley; and the Testimony of More than One Hundred Witnesses against the Modern Whitbyan Theory of a Millennium before the Advent. Boston. John P. Jewett and Company. 1856. First Edition. 408pp.

Fair. Very solid, but moderately stained as shown. Cloth and binding generally solid and in good working order. Unusually, the 16 panel eschatological chart remains present and in good working order as shown. Often lacking or woefully preserved.