Divine providence
Reverend Elliott devoted nearly forty pages to a detailed description of the scene at the papal election (10 March 1512) of Leo X, drawing out how he felt it was a perfectly inverted parody of the vision of the mighty angel at Revelation 10: 1-4 and thus confirmed the papacy in the role of antichrist and usurper of Christ's prerogative and glory. The appearance of the angel in the prophecies caused Edward Elliott to part company with his great forerunner in interpretation, Joseph Mede. For Mede, the angel's little book was a "new and distinct prophecy" concerning the fate of the church, whereas the sealed book that the Lamb had opened had dealt only with the fate of the Empire. But Reverend Elliott did not see it this way. For him, the mighty angel (who was none other than Christ himself) heralded the Reformation. The Reformation could only have been by "direct intervention of Divine providence" because nothing could have been less likely to succeed by human agency alone given all the failed precedents. The Reformation was, effectively, "the republication of the gospel" and the tenth of the city to be destroyed was a quit-rent taken to show God owned all.