Progressive Adventism

While fumbling through the internet recently, I came across the claim that William Miller was a Freemason. It was part of a now-deleted copy of the Wikipedia entry on Miller stored at Answers.com. I have no idea who revised the Wikipedia entry on Miller to its current form. But the earlier author of the entry used three sources to back up the claim: (1) Sylvester Bliss’s seminal biography, Memoirs of William Miller Generally Known as a Lecturer on the Prophecies, and the Second Coming of Christ, published in 1853; (2) Whitney R. Cross’s book on the socio-religious history of Western New York from 1800 to 1850, The Burned-Over District, published in 1950; and (3) the History of Rutland County Vermont with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, published in 1886.

Incredulous, I googled the “William Miler” and “Freemason” combination and found that indeed the same claims were repeated at such inviting sites as TruthorFables.com and TheForbiddenKnowledge.com.

When I turned to my copies of Everett Dick’s Willliam Miller and the Advent Crisis and George Knight’s Millennial Fever and the End of the World, I saw that both did make a passing reference to Miller’s Masonic ties and used Bliss as their source. In fact, in Knight’s book, I saw that back when I first read the book I put a circle around the word “Mason” with a question mark—which means I was going to follow up on that. I never did and had completely forgotten about it.

So I had to go to Bliss, Cross, and the Rutland County history to verify the claim that Miller was a Freemason. Here’s what I’ve found.

1. History of Rutland County, Vermont: This source is completely online, so it was just a matter of clicking the links at Answers.com. Miller moved to Poultney in Rutland County (945 sq. mi. area in west central Vermont) after his marriage to Lucy Smith in 1803. The editors of this book—in Chapter 18, Part 1, entitled “Secret Societies”—provide a brief history of Freemasonry in this county and a list of “those who have been prominent in the Order.” Midway through the list is one “Rev. William Miller.” Is this our Miller? This is impossible to establish. One thing to note is that Miller was made a “Reverend” on September 14, 1833, when he received the license to preach by his own and a neighboring congregation—both Baptist churches (See Bliss, 108, 109). Interestingly, the same list includes John Stanley, most probably the “Judge Stanley” that Miller mentions in his Apology and Defence. Elsewhere in this history of Rutland County, there is a John Stanley, a resident of Poultney, who worked as the Probate Register in the District of Fairhaven in 1801-1803 and as the Probate Judge in the same district in 1824-1829.

In Part 2 of the same chapter, the editors provide brief histories of Freemasonry in the county by chapter and lodge. Under “Morning Star Lodge, No. 27,” located in Poultney, the following can be found: “This lodge was organized in Poultney prior to 1800, but the exact date is not known. Among the early masters were Harris Horsford, Samuel Ruggles, Captain William Miller, Elisha Ashley, Henry G. Neal and Alonzo Howe, all prominent men. The lodge, in common with most others in the State, gave up its charter about 1832, on account of the anti-Masonic warfare.” This particular lodge was reorganized in 1857 and is still in existence today. Miller, of course, was also known as Captain Miller from his commissioning as a captain in 1813 during the War of 1812. A “J. Stanley” also appears here under “Morning Star Mark Lodge, No. 4,” instituted at Poultney in 1797, as one of the first officers of the lodge. Stanley, being a “Mark Master Mason,” had achieved a higher degree than Miller who was just a “master.” The list of “Royal Arch Masons” (the highest degree to which all Masons are to aspire) on this page are all from 1857 and later.

2. Sylvester Bliss (a Millerite minister and editor of the Millerite journal Signs of the Times whose biography of Miller serves as a key source for all of the biographies that have followed) does make a claim that Miller became a freemason at some point after his marriage to Lucy Smith. Here’s the entire passage that is relevant: “It was here [Poultney, Vermont] that Mr. Miller became a member of the Masonic fraternity, in which his perseverance, if nothing else, was manifested; for he advanced to the highest degree which the lodges then in the country, or in that region, could confer” (21, 22).

A couple of pages later, Bliss describes the type of friendships Miller nurtured in Poultney: “It could be shown, from sentiments embodied in some of his essays, in addresses delivered before societies existing at the time, and in his poetic effusions, that his moral and religious views were of a type that would pass with the world as philosophical, pure, and sublime. But the men with whom he associated from the time of his removal to Poultney, and to whom he was considerably indebted for his worldly favors, were deeply affected with sceptical principles and deistical theories. . . . [T]hey rejected the Bible as the standard of religious truth, and endeavored to make its rejection plausible by such aid as could be obtained from the writings of Voltaire, Hume, Volney, Paine, Ethan Allen, and others. Mr. Miller studied these works closely, and at length avowed himself a deist.”

In describing early influences in Miller’s life, Bliss writes that young Miller growing up in Hampton, New York, borrowed books from “gentlemen in the vicinity, who had become interested in his improvement; among whom were Dr. [James] Witherill [who later became a judge in Michigan] and Col. [Matthew] Lyon [who became a congressman representing Vermont in 1794-1798], of Fairhaven [in Vermont], and Esquire [Alexander] Cruikshanks [a Scottish immigrant], of Whitehall [in New York]” (13).

3. Whitney Cross, in his 1950 book, writes that William Miller “became a Royal Arch Mason and a good Democrat and advanced from constable and justice to sheriff of Poultney, Vermont” (288). Cross makes no further reference or comment on Miller’s Masonic connections, but earlier in the book, he observes that among those established in Western New York, “many of the landlords’ agents and other scions of aristocracy associated with the Democratic Republicans” and that “many also proved to be Masons” (79). Elsewhere, Cross writes of the Masonic hold on public offices: “Increasingly it appeared that Masons held a monopoly of offices and juries, so that local trials had no chance of reaching suitable verdicts. When local citizens’ committees [by non-Masons] induced the state legislature to consider a special investigation, their resolutions met such smacking defeats that a gigantic conspiracy seemd the only logical explanation,” (115) leading to the Antimasonic backlash in 1827-1840. Cross then observes that “Baptists . . . felt particularly oppressed by the interposition of Masonic ties among their clergymen and leading laymen. Apparently a great majority of the ministers, compensating for past sins, renounced and denounced the fraternity” (122, 123). Yet Cross makes a poignant observation that William Miller, a Baptist minister now, in his letter to Truman Hendryx on November 17, 1832, “rejoiced when Antimasonry died in his locality” (123). [This letter is among the William Miller Papers at Aurora College Library.] Also, Cross notes the following comment by Miller on various reform crusades of the 1820s and 1830s: “‘these fireskulled, vissionary [sic], fanatical, treasonable, suicidal, demoralizing, hot headed set of abolitionists, are worse if possible than Anti-Masonry’” (318, 319).

4. Another Letter by Miller to Truman Hendryx, dated March 26, 1832, shows that Miller was not happy the Anti-Masonic wave of the 1830s: “Br. [J.] Sawyer has almost become sick of Anti-masonry. And you would not wonder if you should see how inconsistant [sic] they act. They came together in our ch[urc]h a few weeks since, and being a majority in the ch[urc]h they voted Brs. Aborrs & the two Whitlocks letters of recommendations to other churches, when these brethren, said at the same time they could not and would not walk with the ch[urc]h. Br Sawyer sees the inconsistancy [sic] of their conduct, and so does some of them, and how it will end the Lord only knows. But we have a meeting next Saturday to recall the letters[. H]ow much we need of the spirit of Jesus to keep us right.”

5. Letter by A. S. Harriman, Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Vermont, to Stanley L. Horka, a Masonic historian in New Jersey, July 8, 1936. This letter is a response to an inquiry that Horka had made on William Miller’s Masonic connections. In this letter found at newcomermuseum.com, Harriman writes: “I am sorry to say that we have no records of Masonic membership which run back to the time of William Miller. Our records of membership were started after the reorganization of 1846-47 and are sketchy even then for twenty years or more. . . . In those early days, Lodges were located in different places and Miller may have joined in Rutland or some other locality. I do not think you will find any record in Vermont.” However, in the postscript, Harriman details some minutes from the early 19th century showing Miller attended several meetings: “In an old book of Early Records, I find that a William Miller attended the sessions of Grand Lodge as follows: in 1809 as proxy for W.M. [Worshipful Master], S.W. [Senior Warden], and J.W. [Junior Warden]; and in 1810 as S.W. and proxy for J.W. . . . Miller may have been W.M. in either 1811 or 1812 or both. . . . The Lodge was then Morning Star, No. 27, of Poultney, Vt.”

My Initial, TENTATIVE Observations and Questions

1. Based on all this, I’m satisfied with the conclusion that William Miller was a Freemason.

2. Bliss’s reference that Miller “advanced to the highest degree” conferred in his region seems to be an assertion that not only was he a “Master” of a local lodge, but also a “Royal Arch Mason” (as Cross claims without any citation), the highest complementary degree that Master Masons are to pursue. But I haven’t found a record to verify that. As I’ve written above, the Rutland history indicates that there was a lodge for “Mark Master Masons” (an intermediate degree on the way to the Royal Arch degree) in Poultney, but Miller’s name is not listed there. There is a listing for Royal Arch Masons in the Rutland history, but all names listed there are from 1857.

My understanding of the Masonic hierarchy, based on quick lookup online, is this: Brother (New Initiate) - Fellow-Craft - Apprentice - Warden - Master - Grand Warden - Grand Master. Promotion is not based on seniority, but on merit. Once a Warden reaches the degree of “Master,” he is to complement it by pursuing parallel, complementary degrees of “Mark Master Mason,” “Past Master,” “Most Excellent Master,” and finally “Royal Arch Mason.” Was Miller made a Royal Arch Mason? Bliss’s reference provides a strong indication that he indeed was one.

3. I think it is safe to conclude that many, if not most, of Miller’s Deist friends were Freemasons. Based on Cross’s research, I feel comfortable in concluding that Miller’s rise in social standing (e.g., to Captain and Justice of Peace) had much to do with his Masonic connections. While it is true that Poultney was on the edges of the “Burned-over district” that Cross writes about, given the strong Anti-Masonic sentiments that Miller reports about and the facts found in the Rutland County history, it appears that the Masonic social network and hold on public offices was very strong there.

4. It’s interesting that Miller or Himes do not make any reference to Miller’s Masonic background in any of their writings. Was this because of the Anti-Masonic bias that was rampant in New England at the time of their writing? Or because Miller had never truly severed his ties with the Freemasons? Miller’s letters from the 1830s show that he clearly was unhappy with Anti-Masonry. Was it because of the crude ways in which they hunted down Masons, or because he maintained membership or at least sympathies with Freemasonry? These are questions that may be answered by doing further research in Miller’s unpublished writings, especially letters. A highly interesting point is that Miller clearly disavows Deism but never Freemasonry. And it is true that many Christians, even Baptists, in 1830s & 1840s New England found Freemasonry and Christianity compatible.

5. Much has already been made of Miller’s Deism influencing his study of Scripture from 1816—that the rationalistic, mechanistic view of the world that he held prior to the conversion translated to the highly methodical, dissecting manner in which he studied Scripture. Indeed, for Miller, studying Scripture was “a feast of reason.” However, I haven’t found any research on Miller’s Masonic background and how that might have contributed to his prophetic interpretation. Alfred J. Gabay, writing in 2005, said that as a result of the Enlightenment, “Some turned to biblical prophecy and the millennial predictions of impending doom during the Last Days; others joined freemasonry, claiming to possess secret knowledge reaching back to Egyptian or other antiquity, and rendered obeisance to the rational worship of a Great Architect.” (Covert Enlightenment: Eighteenth-century Counterculture and Its Aftermath). European history is replete with Masons in search of secret messages and treasures from the past. There was by Miller’s time the phenomenon of Masonic Millennialism connected to the 1st and 2nd Temples—and restoration of it—as well as Masonic interest in the time prophecies of Scripture. What influence did any of these have on Miller’s study of Scripture? Could it be that just as much as Miller was driven by his Christianized Deistic assumption that Scripture was a machine that can be decoded, he was stimulated by his Christianized Masonic assumption that Scripture contained a “system of revealed truths” that was encoded by the Author, waiting to be decoded? If Deism informed Miller on how he should study Scripture, his Masonic background may well have informed him on what to look for in Scripture. Could it be, I wonder, that Miller is more like the Magi following the star than we’ve previously thought? Or . . . am I making a lot out of little or nothing—in search of my own pursuit of a pseudo-scholarly holy grail?

Miller wroe in his “Memoir” published by Joshua Himes in 1842 that before conversion he viewed the Bible “as a system of craft, rather than truth” (italics his). Craft is a term that was and still is used interchangeably with Masonry and as an adjective to Masonry, much like Wicca uses the term to refer to itself (a la witchcraft). This little reference by Miller leads me to believe that he had abandoned many of the significant features of Freemasonry; he must have to come to the conclusions that he came to. I have no doubt about that. But how much remained? That’s the question.

I think it will be well worth the effort to do a “Masonic reading” of Miller’s writings at some point.

6. Many have made a pretty convincing connection between Freemasonry and Joseph Smith/Mormonism and a not-so-convincing connection betwen Freemasonry and the introduction of the Baha’i Faith to the U.S. Some view that Miller’s millenialism and his arrival at 1844 as the year of the cleansing of the sanctuary and the Baha’i view of 1844 as the beginning of a New Age are connected via the Freemasonry. What I’ve seen reads more like a conspiracy theory with many unsubstantiated claims.

7. So, what do I make of all this? Does this change anything about my belief that he was led by God? Some of you might think so, but I still believe that God’s hand was with this erring man, William Miller. He was a man of his time used by God for a particular purpose, though at the same time he was oblivious to some of the clear, revealed instructions of God in Scripture. Adventist mythology based on a literalistic reading of Miller has long held that Miller really used only the Bible and Cruden’s Concordance to come to his conclusions. That simply isn’t true. He consulted history books and was informed by other works of interpretation . . . and, whether he wanted to or not, by his Baptist upbringing, (self-)education, and Deist/Masonic literature and colleagues, and other life experiences. I see that God uses flawed individuals with flawed theology and agendas who create flawed movements.

P.S.) Let me reiterate that these are my initial, tentative observations. Many questions remain that are yet to be answered and probably some will never be answered.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.