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.
16. But the resigned Will does as a potent Champion continually bruise the Head of this Serpent, and says, Thou art arisen from the Devil, and God's Anger, I will have none of thee, thou art an Abomination before God. And though the resigned Will is sometimes captivated with false Lust, when it overwhelms and overpowers it with the Devil's Desire and Insinuation of its Imagination, yet the resigned Will does forthwith cry to the Word of God, that God's Will does again bring it out of the Abomination of Death.
17. The resigned Will has no Rest here in this Cottage, but must always be in Combat, for it is lodged in a false House: It is indeed in itself in God's Hand; but, without itself it is in the Jaws and Throat of the Abyss of God's Anger in the Kingdom of Devils, which continually pass up and down with it, and Desire to try and tempt the Soul, viz. the Centre.
18. In like Manner also the good Angels stand by him in the resigned Will, viz. in the divine Desire, and defend him from the poisonful Imagination of the Devil; they keep off the fiery Darts of the wicked one, as St. Peter says.
19. For all do Work and Desire in Man, God's Love and Anger: He stands while he is in this Tabernacle in the Gate either to go out or in: Both eternal Principles are stirring in him; to which the Soul's Will gives itself, of that it is received, and thereto it is chosen; he is drawn of both, and if the Will of the Soul remains in Self-hood, then he is in the Hand of God's Anger.
20. But if he departs out of his Self-hood, and forsakes his own Damnation, and continually casts himself only into God's Mercy, viz. into the Suffering and Death of Christ, and into his Resurrection and Restoration, and wills Nothing of himself, but what God wills in him, and by him, then the Will is dead to the Life and Desire of God's Anger; for it has no own Life, but lies in the Death of Self-hood and the Desire of the Devil; and the Anger of God cannot reach him; for he is as a Nothing, and yet is in God, and lives in the divine Essence wholly, but not to himself, but to his first Mother of Eternity: He is again in the Limit or Place where he was before he was a Creature, and in the Will wherein God created him, and is an Instrument in the Voice of God, upon which only the Will-Spirit of God does strike, to its Honour and Deeds of Wonder.
21. All self-ful Seeking and Searching in Self-hood is a vain Thing; Self-Will apprehends Nothing of God, for it is not in God, but without God in its Self-hood; but the resigned Will apprehends it; for it does not do it, but the Spirit in whom it stands still, whose Instrument it is, he manifests himself in the divine Voice in it as much as he pleases: And though it may apprehend much in Self-hood by searching and learning (which is not wholly to no Purpose), yet its Apprehension is only without in the expressed Word, viz. in a Form of the Letter; and it understands Nothing of the Form of the expressed Word, how the same is in its Ground; for it is only born in the Form from without, and not in the Power of the Universal Pregnatress, whose Ground has neither Beginning, Comprehension, or End.
22. Now that he is born from within out of the speaking Voice of God in God's Will-Spirit, he goes in the Byss and Abyss everywhere free, and is bound to no Form; for he goes not in Self-hood, but the eternal Will guides him as its Instrument, according as it pleases God: but he that is born only in the Letter, he is born in the Form of the expressed Word, and goes on in Self-hood, and is a self-ful Voice; for he seeks what he pleases, and contends about the Form, and leaves the Spirit which has made the Form.
23. Such a doctor Babel is; it contends, wrangles, and rages about the Form of the Word, and continually introduces the self-ful Spirit and Understanding in the Form, and cries out, Here is the Church of Christ; and it is only a self-ful Voice, understanding Nothing of the Spirit of the Form which is incomprehensible, and strikes upon its prepared Instrument without Limit and Measure as it pleases. For Conjecture, Opinion, or the self-ful own Imagination, which arises in the expressed Voice [or literal outward Word], is not God's Word; but that which arises in God's Spirit in the wholly resigned Will in divine Power in the eternal speaking Word, that takes its Original out of God's Voice, and makes the Form in the Heart, viz. a divine Desire, whereby the Soul's Will is drawn into God.
24. He is a Shepherd, and Teacher of Christ, who enters in through the Door of Christ, that is, who speaks and teaches by Christ's Spirit; without this there is only the Form, viz. the History that was once brought to pass, and that a Man need only accept of it, and comfort himself therewith: but this Will remains without, for it will be a Child of an assumed Grace, and not wholly die to its Self-hood in the Grace, and become a Child of Grace in the resigned Will.