pared for you from the foundation of the
world." We have seen by the scriptures just given that when the Son of man
comes, the dead are raised incorruptible, and the living are changed. By
this great change they are prepared to receive the kingdom; for Paul says,
"Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth
corruption inherit incorruption."(528) Man in his present state is mortal,
corruptible; but the kingdom of God will be incorruptible, enduring
forever. Therefore man in his present state cannot enter into the kingdom
of God. But when Jesus comes, He confers immortality upon His people; and
then He calls them to inherit the kingdom of which they have hitherto been
only heirs.

These and other scriptures clearly proved to Miller's mind that the events
which were generally expected to take place before the coming of Christ,
such as the universal reign of peace and the setting up of the kingdom of
God upon the earth, were to be subsequent to the second advent.
Furthermore, all the signs of the times and the condition of the world
corresponded to the prophetic description of the last days. He was forced
to the conclusion, from the study of Scripture alone, that the period
allotted for the continuance of the earth in its present state was about
to close.

"Another kind of evidence that vitally affected my mind," he says, "was
the chronology of the Scriptures.... I found that predicted events, which
had been fulfilled in the past, often occurred within a given time. The
one hundred and twenty years to the flood (Gen. 6:3); the seven days that
were to precede it, with forty days of predicted rain (Gen. 7:4); the four
hundred years of the sojourn of Abraham's seed (Gen. 15:13); the three
days of the butler's and baker's dreams (Gen. 40:12-20); the seven years
of Pharaoh's (Gen. 41:28-54); the forty years in the wilderness (Num.
14:34); the three and a half years of famine (1 Kings 17:1);(529) ... the
seventy years' captivity (Jer. 25:11); Nebuchadnezzar's seven times (Dan.
4:13-16); and the seven weeks, threescore and two weeks, and the one week,
making seventy weeks, determined upon the Jews (Dan. 9:24-27),--the events
limited by these times were all once only a matter of prophecy, and were
fulfilled in accordance with the predictions."(530)

When, therefore, he found, in his study of the Bible, various
chronological periods that, according to his understanding of them,
extended to the second coming of