The Signature of All Things — trans. John Ellistone (1651)
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The translator’s English as printed (John Ellistone). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
15. Thus these are the seven Forms of the Mother of all Beings, from whence all whatever is in this World is generated; and moreover the Most High has, according to this Mother, introduced and created such Properties as this Mother is in her wrestling Forms (understand, as she brings herself with the Wrestling into Properties) into a Wheel, which is as a Mind of the Mother, from whence she continually creates and works; and these are the Stars with the planetary Orb according to the Platform of the eternal Astrum, which is only a Spirit, and the eternal Mind in the Wisdom of God, viz. the eternal Nature, from whence the eternal Spirits are proceeded and entered into a creaturely Being.
16. And moreover the Most High has introduced the Property of this Wheel in the Motion, as a Life into the four Officers, which Manage the Dominion in the pregnant Mother; and these are the four Elements to which the Wheel of the Mind, viz. the Astrum affords Will and Desire; so that this whole Being is but one only Thing, and yet is so proportioned [or composed] as a Mind of a Man: Even as he is in Soul and Body, so also is this only Essence; for it was created out of this whole Essence into an Image according to Eternity and Time; out of Eternity according to the Soul, and out of Time according to the outward Essence, as a Similitude and Image of Eternity and Time, both according to the eternal Will and Mind and its Essence, and also according to the Mind of Time and its Essence: And therefore now we are rightly to consider of the Sulphurean Wheel of all Essences, how the Properties introduce themselves into Good and Evil, and again bring themselves out of Good and Evil.
17. The Impression or Desire, viz. the first Form to Nature, which is called, and is also the Fiat, receives the Desire's Property according to the Property of all the seven Forms into itself, and impresses them, so that out of the Nothing proceeds forth an Essence according to the Properties of the Will: Now its own Property, seeing it is only a Desire, and impresses itself, is dark, and causes Hardness, viz. a strong Pulsation, which is a Cause of the Tone or Sound, which becomes yet more hard in the Fire, viz. in the fourth Form, where then the Grossness dies away, and it is received again in the fifth Form, viz. in the Love-Desire; and again it proceeds forth in its own Property in the Love-Desire, and makes the sixth Form, viz. the Sound, Voice, or Tone out of the Fire and Water.
18. Now this Tone or Sound, which is called Mercury, arises in the first Form, viz. in the Impression, by Reason of the Will and attractive Desire; for the Attraction makes the Motions and the Compunction in the Hardness, which we distinguish, and call the second Form, but it is a Son of the first, and in the first.
19. This second Form or Property is the raging, Stinging, and bitter Pain; for the first is astringent, and the second is drawing, viz. the Desire into an Essence; this same Essence is the Property of the first, and the Attraction makes therein the second Property, viz. a bitter Stinging which the Hardness cannot endure; for it would be still, and thereupon it does more vehemently impress itself to withhold the Sting, and yet the Sting does thereby only grow the greater: Now the Hardness, viz. the Astringency draws inwards, and the Sting from the Hardness upwards: Hence arises the first Enmity and Opposition; for the two Forms, which yet are but one, make themselves their own enemies; and yet if this were not, there would not be any Essence, neither Body nor Spirit, also no Manifestation of the Eternity of the Abyss.
20. But now seeing the bitter Sting cannot ascend, and the Hardness also cannot hold or enclose it, they fall into a turning or breaking through like a Wheel, which runs into itself as an horrible Essence, where both Properties are known only as one, and yet each remains in itself unaltered, and produce the third Property between both, viz. the great Anguish; out of which the Will, understand the fixt Will to Nature, desires to go forth again into the Liberty, viz. into the Nothing, into the eternal Rest; for here it has thus found itself, and manifested itself, and yet there is no Separating or Departing: and this anxious Form is the Mother of Sulphur, for the Sting makes it painful, and the Hardness impresses it, that it is as a Dying Source, and yet it is the true Original to Life.