ADVENTISTS (SECOND ADVENTISTS). - This name, which designates certain Protestant sects of America, derives from the belief of their faithful in the second coming of Christ on earth. Its founder was William Miller (b. at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on 5 February 1782, d. at Low Hampton, New York, on 10 December 1849), of the Baptist confession of New England, who from 1831 onward began preaching a doctrine that he had elaborated through the study of the sacred books, especially the prophetic ones, and set forth in the volume Evidence from Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ about the Year 1843 (Brandon [Vermont] 1842), succeeding in making proselytes even among the Baptists and Methodists themselves. His conviction was that Christ would descend again upon the earth to reign, in human form, in communion with the Saints, for a space of a thousand years, in the course of which the exaltation of the good and the condemnation of the wicked were to take place.
From the calculations he made, taking as his terms the 2300 days (to be understood as years) of the prophecy of Daniel (8:14), and computing them from the return of Ezra to Jerusalem, placed in 457 B.C., Miller even fixed the year of the end of the world and therefore of the second advent, which according to him was to fall between 21 March 1843 and 21 March 1844; a term later postponed by one of his followers, S. S. Snow, to 22 October 1844, after the disappointment confessed by Miller himself over the event that failed to occur, the reason adduced being the non-correspondence of the Hebrew year with the Christian year. But the passing even of this last date without anything having come to pass cooled many of the new proselytes, who little by little withdrew from the central movement to pour into the bosom of other sects. Those who remained adherent to Miller (about 50,000) were gathered by him in a general assembly at Albany on 25 April 1845, within which the fundamental canons of their faith were established, bearing principally on the imminent second advent of Christ, though without fixing its date, and on the resurrection of the Saints for the life of the millennium, and the name "Adventists" was adopted as official for the sect.
In the course of time, however, differences of view further divided the community of Adventists, so that upon the original stock, today almost extinct, of the Evangelical Adventists (Evangelical Adventists), to be regarded as the primordial one, five new Churches gradually came into being, which, while preserving in common the constitutional and programmatic belief in the physical return of Christ, differ among themselves by peculiar characteristics. Today, therefore, there are reckoned the Advent Christians, the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Church of God, the Life and Advent Union, and the Churches of God in Christ Jesus.
The Seventh-Day Adventists (Seventh-Day Adventists), so called because of the observance they practice of the sabbath rest, began to organize as early as 1844 in New Hampshire, establishing their first seat at Middletown, Conn. (1849), then at Battle Creek, Mich. (1885), and finally at Washington (1903). In correspondence with the other Adventist sects, they too hold that the second personal coming of Christ is near, triumphant in the glory of the Saints, for the kingdom of the thousand years, at the end of which the good will receive the eternal reward and the wicked will be dispersed. The soul of these new Adventists was Ellen Gould White, considered, because of the inspiration of her preaching, as a prophetess. The Seventh-Day Adventists constitute not only the largest trunk of the whole so-called Adventist Church, in terms of the number of members, institutions and ministers, but also the best organized, both in internal spiritual and temporal administration and in the field of foreign missions, which embrace countries of all continents.
The Advent Christians (Advent Christians), originally constituted in New England (1861), where they still count the greatest number of adherents, have their official seat at Boston. They oppose in part the doctrines set forth by the Evangelical Adventists, especially with regard to the immortality of the soul, holding that this does not belong at all to the wicked, who will be roused from death, at the end of the millennium, only to receive their final condemnation, eternity being reserved for the good, which, as a reward, will be attributed to them by Christ at the second return.
Around 1864-65, from the Seventh-Day Adventists there broke away, under the guidance of the Adventist pastor Cranmer, all those who refused to accept the "inspired" word of Ellen G. White, in order to constitute themselves as a separate community under the name of Church of God (Church of God), agreeing, as to the rest, with the general theories of Adventism.
For the adherents of the Life and Advent Union (The Life and Advent Union), who constitute the minority of the discordant family of Adventists, the millennium has already passed and was not a period of serenity and enjoyment, but rather of persecution and suffering for Christians. Organized in 1864, they still hold that for the wicked there will be no resurrection and that eternal life will be a reward only for the good.
Another small band of separated Adventists, gathered at Philadelphia in 1888, under the denomination of Churches of God in Christ Jesus (Churches of God in Christ Jesus, otherwise called Age-to-Come Adventist), holds that Christ, returning to earth, will establish Jerusalem as the capital of his kingdom and will restore the Israelite nation to the favor of God. For this reason they are also called restorationists or restitutionists.