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.
24. This Reason most ignorantly gainsays, and says, God is omnipotent, and omniscient, he has made it: Even he hath done with his Work as he hath pleased, who will contend with the Most High? Yes, dear Reason, now thou thinkest thou hittest it right; but first learn the A B C in the great Mystery: All whatever is risen out of the eternal Will, viz. out of the great eternal Mystery of all Beings (as Angels and the Souls of Men are), stands in equal Weight in Evil and Good in the free Will as God himself; that Desire which powerfully and predominantly works in the Creature, and quite overtops the other, of that Property the Creature is. As a Candle puts forth out of itself a Fire, and out of the Fire the Wind, which Wind the Fire draws again into itself, and yet gives it forth again; and when this Spirit is gone forth from the Fire and Light, then it is free from the Fire and Light; what Property it again receives, of that it is: The first Mystery wherein the Creature consists is the all-essential Mystery, and the other in the forth-going Spirit is its Propriety, and a self-ful Will. Has not every Angel its own peculiar Spirit, which is generated out of its own Mystery, which has its Original out of Eternity? Why will this Spirit be a Tempter of God, and tempt the Mystery, which immediately captivates it in the Wrath, as happened to Lucifer? It has the drawing to God's Wrath and to God's Love in it; why does not the Spirit (which is generated out of both) which is the Similitude of the Spirit of God, continue in its Place in Obedience, as a Child before the Mother in Humility?
25. Thou sayst it cannot; It is not so: Every Spirit stands in the Place where it was created in equal Weight, and has its free Will; it is a Spirit with the all-essential Eternal Spirit, and may take to itself a Lubet in the all-essential Eternal Spirit as it Wills, either in God's Love or Anger; whereinto it introduces its longing Imagination, the Essence and Property of that it receives in the great Mystery of all Beings.
26. In God the Birth is manifest in Love and Anger; why not also in the Creature which is created out of God's Essence and Will, out of his Voice and Breath into an Image? What Property [or Note] of the Voice the Creature awakes in itself, the same sounds in, and rules the Creature: God's Will to the Creature was only one, viz. a general Manifestation of the Spirit, as each [Creature] was apprehended in the Property of the eternal Mystery; yet, Lucifer was apprehended in the good Angelical Property, which plainly testifies that he was an Angel in Heaven; but his own incorporised Will-Spirit forced itself into the wrathful Mother, to awaken the same in it, and thereby to be a Lord over every created Being. Now the Will-Spirit is free, it is the eternal Original, let it do what it will.
27. Therefore we are to know this, and it is no otherwise, that the Will-Spirit which takes its Original out of Love and Anger, out of both eternal Principles, has given itself into the Wrath, whereby the Wrath has Powerfully got the upper Hand and Dominion, and put itself out of the equal Harmony into a Dissonance or Discord, and so he must be driven into his Likeness; this is his Fall, and so it is also the Fall of all Evil Men.
28. Now Self-Reason alledges the Scripture, where it is written, Many are called, but few are chosen: Also, I have Loved Jacob and hated Esau; also, Hath not a Potter Power to make of one lump [of Earth] what he pleaseth? I say the same also, That many are called, but few are chosen; for they will not; they give their free Will into God's Anger, where they are even apprehended, and so are chosen to be Children of Wrath; whereas they were all called in Adam into Paradise, and in Christ into the Regeneration; but they would not, the free Will would not, it exalted itself into the Wrath of God which apprehended it, and so they were not chosen Children; for God's Love chooses only its Likeness, and so likewise God's Anger; yet the Gate of the Regeneration stands open to the Wicked, whom the Anger of God has apprehended. Man has the Death in him, whereby he may die to the Evil; but the Devil has not, for he was created to the highest Perfection.