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.
63. Now all this has also the Properties of the Desire, and takes its Original from the first Principle, viz. from the first Centre, and there is yet no right Dying in the Fire; the dark Essence only dies, and the Will-Spirit goes forth with the eternal Will to Nature again out of the fiery Death in the Light; it is only a Transmutation of the Spirit, so that an Hunger arises out of the Liberty, and this Hunger is a Love-Desire; as to the Soul of Man it draws Essence from the Element of God, viz. in the divine Salniter it [takes] the divine Salts or Powers into itself; and as to the outward World's Desire it draws the Oil out of the Sulphur into itself, in which [Oil] the outward Life burns; and so it is likewise in the Vegetables and Metals, and other Things.
64. The Sun makes the outward Transmutation, and the divine Light in the Soul's Property makes the inward; according as each Thing stands in its Degree, so does its Hunger reach a Property: those which are in the Time [receive a Property] from the Time, and those in Eternity likewise out of Eternity: The Hunger which proceeds from Eternity eats of the Eternity, and that which is of the Time eats of the Time. The true Life of all Creatures eats of the Spiritual Mercury, viz. of the sixth Form, where all Salts are essentially; the Spirit eats of the five Senses, for they are the Spirit's Corporality; and the Body, viz. the vegetable Life, eats of the Essence of the Sulphur and Salt; for Christ says in like Manner, Man liveth not by Bread only, but by every Word which proceedeth out of the Mouth of God.
65. Now the sixth Form of Nature is the expressed Spiritual Word; and the speaking Word therein is the eternal Word: In the first Impression in the Darkness it is the Word of God's Anger; and in the outward World it is the poisonful Mercury, viz. a cause of all Life and Stirring, of all Tones and Sounds; now every Property eats of its Likeness in its Degree; the Hunger of Time [eats] of Time, and the Hunger of Eternity [eats] of Eternity, both the Spirit of Mercury and the Spirit of Sulphur; whereas yet there are not two [Spirits] but only two Properties; all whatever does only take its Original in one Principle, as the Creatures of the outward World, they have only one Region, but a twofold Inclination from the Good and Evil; but whatever takes its Original out of two Principles, as Man, he has also a twofold Food and Dominion, viz. from the dark Centre, and from the outward Centre; but if he dies to his Self-hood, and brings his Hunger into God's Kingdom, then he may eat of the divine Mercury, viz. of the five divine Senses with the Soul, and of the Element in the divine Essence; and yet the outward Man apprehends not in this Life-Time the divine Essence corporeally, but only through the Imagination, where the inward Body penetrates the outward; as the Sun shines through the Water, and yet the Water continues still Water, for here lies our Fall in Adam.
66. The Element did wholly penetrate the four Elements, and it was wholly one in Man, but in the Curse the Element separated from the Soul, so that the poor Soul now lives only in the Vessel of the four Elements, unless it again enters in the Death of its earthly Will into the divine Desire, and springs forth in the Element.
67. Thus also the outward Body is in the Curse, and eats of the cursed Earth's Property, viz. only of the earthly Salniter, where one Hunger of the earthly Properties continually opposes another; for the Curse is a loathsome Abominate in all Salts, and from thence it comes that a constant contrariety arises in the outward Body; for one Hunger of the Properties receives [or catches] from the other the Abominate: Now to help the Body that it may be freed from the Abominate, it must take the Assimulate of the lothing Abominate, which is risen in the Body as a Sude or Seething, and introduce it into the Dying of the Fire, and bring it out in the Love-Desire from the Curse of the Vanity; now this is no otherwise effected, but as the true Life dies to the dark vanity.
68. The Abominate of the outward Life arises from a Property of the Salt which is contrary to the Oil of the Life: Thus the Abominate does forthwith enkindle itself in the four Elements, and begins to seethe in the Salniter as a strange Life: This strange Life does at last darken and destroy the first true Life, if it be not resisted; and it can have no better help than with the Assimulate of the introduced Abominate, which the Life has taken into itself; therefore that must be done to the Cure, which is to be done to the Life, that it Might be freed from the Abominate.