Secondly, the Plan and Order of the book were written within and without, sealed seven times. Reverend Elliott took as his text, "I will show thee the things that must happen after these things." He believed this set aside "interpretations based on the principle of the Apocalypse being a prophecy figurative only of the times yet future."Horae Apocalypticae Vol 1 p. 111. During the course of the five editions of Horae, the attack seemed to shift from Preterism and Futurism to an attack on rationalism. But it would be wrong to play down the older concerns as Elliott himself makes clear. "Accordingly, the three septenaries of Seals, Trumpets and Vials will be interpreted by me as connected and consecutive series; - the seventh Seal unfolding itself in the seven Trumpet visions, the seventh Trumpet in the seven Vials: and this with no intermission or interruption."Horae Apocalypticae Vol 1 p. 114. Edward Bickersteth was the most able advocate of the 'counter-structural' scheme which Elliott opposed. In Bickersteth's scheme, the seals related to church history, the trumpets to secular history. Elliott's objections are set out at Vol 1 p. 549ff He considered the more complex overlapping and interlocking chronology of Joseph Mede to be unnatural and wrong because truth must be simple.
