An important re-issue of George Bush’s classic work on the Millennium issued at a critical moment, just as William Miller's movement was reaching its fever pitch of popular excitement.

The optimism of America in the early decades of the 19th century was reflected in the "postmillennial" view of history that underlay much of the great outbreak of religious revival and social reform today we call The Second Great Awakening. Postmillennialism argued the Second Coming of Christ would occur at the end of the thousand-year reign of the Saints. But disappointment with the progress of the Awakening religiously and socially ripened the theological landscape for a turn toward premillennialism, a doctrine that accommodated a view that the world was not improving, but chaotic and that it would instead be by the return of Christ that the Millennial kingdom would arrive.

Bush's book was a direct intervention in this debate. He was a postmillennialist and argued the millennium would be brought about through the gospel transforming the world, after which Christ would return. Miller, by contrast, was a premillennialist who believed Christ's return would come before and cause the millennium, and that this would happen between March of 1843 and March of 1844.

The relationship between Bush and Miller became one of the most discussed theological exchanges of the era. George Bush, professor of Hebrew and Oriental literature at New York City University, wrote to Miller noting that Bush, Finney, Cowles, and others were not out of harmony with Miller on the nearness of the millennium, but on its meaning and the events needed to bring it about.

In other words, Bush and Miller agreed something momentous was imminent — they simply disagreed fundamentally on what it was and how it would unfold. Bush thought Miller's chronological calculations were intriguing but his conclusion wrong. Bush said: "Neither is it to be objected, as I conceive, to yourself or your friends, that you have devoted much time and attention to the study of the chronology of prophecy, and have labored much to determine the commencing and closing dates of its great periods. If these periods are actually given by the Holy Ghost in the prophetic books, it was doubtless with the design that they should be studied."

This was a generous concession. Adventist writers later noted that Bush looked for the conversion of the world as the event to mark the termination of the 2300 days, while Miller held that the world would be regenerated by fire at the end of that period.

Adventist writers would later argue that both Miller and Bush made errors: "Both these great men mistook the event to terminate the 2300 days. And why should Mr. Miller be condemned for his mistake, and Mr. Bush be excused for his unscriptural conclusion?"

A fine and important imprint of Bush’s work, appearing just as Miller's movement was cresting nationally, with hundreds of thousands of followers. One might even suppose Bush saw the “disappointment” coming and wished to provide a pastoral off-ramp either or after for those who would want or need to reappraise their views.

Bush's retitling of his work from the more academic Treatise on the Millennium to the more dramatic Millennium of the Apocalypse signaled that he was deliberately entering the popular debate. The new preface addressed the Millerite moment directly.

Bush, George. The Millennium of the Apocalypse. Second Edition [with a New Preface]. Salem. John P. Jewett. 1842. 206pp.

Good + in original publisher's blind-stamped cloth. Some light chipping at extremities as shown, minor stains. Very solid with some occasional moderate foxing and one gathering somewhat forward in the binding.