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.
26. And understand us very exactly and well: The Liberty will not be a Nothing, for therefore the Lubet of the Liberty introduces itself into Nature and Essence, that it might be manifest in Power, Wonder, and Being; it likewise assumes to itself through the Sharpness in the cold and dark Impression the Properties, that it might manifest the Power of the Liberty: For it consumes the dark Essence in the Fire, and proceeds forth out of the Fire, out of the Anguish of the Impression, with the Spiritual Properties in the Light; as you see, that the outward Light so shines forth out of the Fire, and has not the Source and Pain of the Fire in it, but only the Property; the Light manifests the Properties of the Darkness, and that only in itself; the Darkness remains in itself dark, and the Light continues in itself Light.
27. The Liberty (which is called God) is the Cause of the Light; and the Impression of the Desire is the Cause of the Darkness and painful Source: Now herein understand two eternal Beginnings, viz. two Principles, one in the Liberty in the Light, the other in the Impression in the Pain and Source of the Darkness, each dwelling in itself.
28. And understand us farther concerning their opening Essence and Will, how Nature is introduced into seven Properties; for we speak not of a Beginning, for there is none in Eternity; but thus the eternal Generation is from Eternity to Eternity in itself; and this same eternal Generation has according to the Property of Eternity through its own Desire and Motion introduced itself with this visible World (as with a Likeness of the eternal Spirit into such a creaturely Being which is a Type or platform of the eternal Being) into a Time, of which we will speak afterwards, and shew what the Creature is, Namely a Similitude of the operation of Eternity, and how it has also this same Working temporally in itself.
29. Now concerning the Fire understand us thus: The Fire is the Principle of every Life; to the Darkness it gives Essence and Source, else there would be no Sensibility in the Darkness, also no Spirit, but mere Hardness, a hard, sharp, bitter, galling Sting, as it is really so in the eternal Darkness; but so far as the hot Fire may be obtained, the dark compunctive Property stands in the aspiring covetous Greediness like to a horrible Madness, that it may be known what Wisdom and Folly is.
30. Now the Fire gives also Desire, Source, and Properties to the Light, viz. to the Liberty; yet know this, the Liberty, viz. the Nothing, has no Essence in itself, but the Impression of the austere Desire makes the first Essence, which the Will-Spirit of the Liberty (which has manifested itself through the Nature of the Desire) receives into itself, and brings it forth through the Fire, where the Grossness, viz. the Rawness, does then die in the Fire.
31. Understand it thus: When the Flash of Fire reaches the dark Essentiality, then it becomes a great Flagrat, where the cold Fire is dismayed, and does as it were die, falls into a Swoon, and sinks down: And this Flagrat is effected in the Enkindling of the Fire in the Essence of the Anguish, which has two Properties in it; viz. the one goes downwards into the Death's Property, being a Mortification of the cold Fire, from whence the Water arises, and according to the Grossness the Earth is risen; and the other Part ascends in the Will of the Liberty, in the Lubet, as a Flagrat of Joyfulness; and this same Essence is also mortified in the Flagrat in the Fire, understand the cold Fire's Property, and gives also a Water-Source, understand such a Property.
32. Now the Flash, when it is enkindled by the Liberty, and by the cold Fire, makes in its rising a Cross with the comprehension of all Properties; for here arises the Spirit in the Essence, and it stands thus:
If thou hast here an Understanding, thou needest ask no more; it is Eternity and Time, God in Love and Anger, moreover Heaven and Hell.
33. The lower Part, which is thus marked, is the first Principle, and is the eternal Nature in the Anger, viz. the Kingdom of Darkness dwelling in itself; and the upper Part, with this Figure is the Salniter: The upper Cross above the Circle is the Kingdom of Glory, which proceeds forth in the Flagrat of Joy, in the Will of the free Lubet in itself out of the Fire in the Lustre of the Light into the Power of the Liberty; and this Spiritual Water, which also arises in the Flagrat of Joy, is the Corporality, or Essentiality, in which the Lustre from the Fire and Light makes a Tincture, viz. a Budding and Growing, and a Manifestation of Colours from the Fire and Light.