The Signature of All Things — trans. John Ellistone (1651)

47. Whatever runs on in Nature torments itself, but that which attains Nature's End, the same is in Rest without Source, and yet works, but only in one Desire: All whatever makes Anguish and Strife in Nature, that makes mere Joy in God; for the whole Host of Heaven is set and tuned into one Harmony; each Angelical Kingdom into a peculiar Instrument, but all mutually composed together into one music, viz. into the only Love-Voice of God: Every String of this Melody exalts and rejoices the other; and it is only a mere ravishing Lovely and delightful Hearing, Tasting, Feeling, Smelling, and Seeing: Whatever God is in himself, that the Creature is also in its Desire in him; a God-Angel, and a God-Man, God all in all, and without him Nothing else. As it was before the Times of this World in his eternal Harmony [or Voice], so also it continues in the creaturely Voice in him in his Eternity; and this is the Beginning and the End of all Things.

The Sixteenth Chapter.

Concerning the eternal Signature and heavenly Joy; why all things were brought into Evil and Good

1. The Creation of the whole Creation is Nothing else but a Manifestation of the all-essential, unsearchable God; all whatever he is in his eternal unbeginning Generation and Dominion, of that is also the Creation, but not in the Omnipotence and Power, but like an Apple which grows upon the Tree, which is not the Tree itself, but grows from the Power of the Tree: Even so all Things are sprung forth out of the divine Desire, and created into an Essence, where in the Beginning there was no such Essence present, but only that same Mystery of the eternal Generation, in which there has been an eternal perfection.

2. For God has not brought forth the Creation, that he should be thereby perfect, but for his own Manifestation, viz. for the great Joy and Glory; not that this Joy first began with the Creation, no, for it was from Eternity in the great Mystery, yet only as a Spiritual Melody and Sport in itself.

3. The Creation is the same Sport out of himself, viz. a Platform or Instrument of the Eternal Spirit, with which he melodises: and it is even as a great Harmony of manifold Instruments which are all tuned into one Harmony; for the eternal Word, or divine Sound or Voice, which is a Spirit, has introduced itself with the Generation of the great Mystery into Formings, viz. into an expressed Word or Sound: And as the Joyful Melody is in itself in the Spirit of the eternal Generation, so likewise is the Instrument, viz. the expressed Form in itself, which the living eternal Voice guides, and strikes with his own eternal Will-Spirit, that it Sounds and melodises; as an Organ of divers and various Sounds or Notes is moved with one only Air, so that each Note, yea every Pipe has its peculiar Tune, and yet there is but one Manner of Air or Breath in all Notes, which Sounds in each Note or Pipe according as the Instrument or Organ is made.

4. Thus in the Eternity there is only one Spirit in the whole Work of the divine Manifestation, which is the Manifestator in the expressed Voice and also in the speaking Voice of God, which is the Life of the grand Mystery, and of all that is generated from thence; he is the Manifestator of all the Works of God.

5. All the Angelical Kingdoms are as a prepared Work, viz. a Manifestation of the eternal Sound of the Voice of God, and are as a particularity out of the great Mystery, and yet are only one in the divine eternal speaking Word, Sound, or Voice of God; for one only Spirit rules them; each Angelical prince is a Property out of the Voice of God, and bears the great Name of God; as we have a Type and Figure of it in the Stars of the Firmament, and in the Kingdoms and Dominions upon the Earth among all Generations, where every Lord bears his high Title, respective Name and Office: So likewise do the Stars in the Firmament, which are altogether one only Dominion in Power under them, where the great Stars bear the Name and the Office of the Forms in the Mystery of the seven Properties, and the other after them, as a particularity of Houses or Divisions, where every one is a peculiar Harmony or Operation, like a Kingdom, and yet all proceeds in one Harmony; like a Clock-Work, which is entirely composed in itself, and all the pieces Work mutually together in one; and yet the great fixed Stars keep their peculiar Property in the Essence of Operation, especially the seven Planets according to the seven Properties of Nature, as an under Pregnatress of the eternal Mystery, or as an Instrument of the Spirit out of the eternal Mystery.