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.
43. Mercury is the Wheel of Motion in the Sulphur; he is on one Part according to the dark Impression the stinging Rager, and the great Unquietness, and separates itself also in the Fire in its Mother, viz. in the Sulphur, into two Properties, viz. into a twofold Water; for in the Mortification of the Fire all is turned to Water, understand into a living pleasant Water according to the Light, which produces Silver in the Brimstone, viz. in the seventh Property of Nature, which is the powerful Body, and in the Fire its Water is Quicksilver, and in the Astringency, viz. in the Anguish of the Darkness, it is a Rust or Smoke; therefore if its outward Water-Body be cast into the Fire, understand [that Body] which it receives in Sulphur from the Watery Property, then it does evaporate, for in the Fire every Property separates itself again into the first Essence, from whence it came originally, where all Things were only a Spirit.
44. And then secondly it separates itself according to the Water of the dark Impression into a Poison-Source, which yet cannot be understood to be a Water, but only a corporeal Essence of the Spirit; for as the Spirit's Property is, so is also its Water; and even so it is in the Fire-Flagrat.
45. Further understand us in the fiery Flagrat concerning the Salniter, from whence the manifold Salts and Powers arise; for all the Properties of the Spirit are become corporeal in the great Motion of the Essence of all Essences, and entered into a visible and comprehensible Being: This Flagrat is effected in the Enkindling of the Fire; and in the Mortification of the Fire it impresses into itself from the Water's Original a Water, according to the Property of the Flagrat, which yet is rather Fire than Water, but its mortal Essence is Water according to the Property of the Flagrat; it is the Comprisal of all Properties, it brings forth in its Comprehension, viz. in the fiery Flagrat all Properties in itself, and apprehends the Property of the Light in its Powers, and also the Property of the dark Impression in its Powers, and makes all fiery; one Part according to the Coldness, and one Part according to the Heat; but the most Part according to the endless Mercury, which is the Life of all Essences in Evil and good, in Light and Darkness.
46. This Salniter is the Mother of all Salts in Vegetables and Animals, viz. in Herbs and Trees and everything; he is in all Things, which give a Taste and Smell, the first Root according to each Thing's Property; in the Good (which grow in the Love-Desire in the Oil of Brimstone) he is good, powerful, and pleasant; and in the Evil he is evil in the Anguish of Brimstone; and in the Darkness he is the eternal Horror and Despair, continually desiring in the Flagrat to aspire above the Gates in the Fire, from whence arises the Will of all Devils, and of all Pride, to ascend above the Humility of the Love-Desire; and in the Fire is the trial of his Essence, as we see how he clashes and consumes himself in the Flash as a sudden thought.
47. For its Essence arises not in the Essence of Eternity, also it cannot inherit it, but in the Enkindling of the temporal Fire, yet it is perceived in the eternal Spirit by Reason of the Elevation of the Joy; but according to the Essence of Mortification, viz. according to the Salt of the Fire it subsists in the Fire: For this Property arises out of the first Desire, viz. in the Essence of the first Impression, which Property the Philosophers call Saturn, therefore the Salt is manifold: All Sharpness in the Taste is Salt, the good Taste arises out of the oleous Salt, and so also the Smell, which is the egressive Spirit in which the Tincture appears as a Lustre [or fair Complexion] of Colours.