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.
25. For if the Oil, out of which the Life burns, be infected [or inflamed] with a poisonful Mercury or Salt, let it be done either from the Constellation, or Salt of Meat, viz. from a contrary Source, whereby a Loathing [or nauseous Detestation] arises in the Oil, which the Oil would always spew out, which Mercury helps; then Mercury eagerly troubles and perplexes itself in the Sulphureous Fire more and more, and continually labours to drive forth the Abominate, but does only inflame itself in itself in this austere Endeavour, and more and more enkindles its inward Form, whereupon the Oil grows more dark and poisonful, until at last the Oil becomes wholly waterish and earthly, and then the Light, and also the Fire, extinguishes, and Mercury with the Sulphureous Spirit departs from it, as when a Candle is put out; thus Mercury passes out with the Sulphureous Spirit in Death's baneful Steam, until he also be famished; for a Time he may help himself in the siderial Body, which passes along with it; but when Mercury in the Spirit of the great World has consumed and starved its Property, then is the temporal Life wholly gone; for as soon as the Light of the vital Oil extinguishes, the Elemental Body falls down into Putrefaction, viz. into the Fiat, from whence it came to be; and then this Time ends in the Creature, which is the Death, Dying, or Departure; and from thence there is no Deliverance or Return, unless the heavenly divine Mercury does once more move itself in him, which yet cannot be, except there has been a good Property of the Oil in him, viz. from the divine Essentiality: In this Property, which is capable of the divine Essentiality, the Light does only enkindle itself again.
26. For the divine Essentiality, or this heavenly Mercury, changes the dead Oil again into his, and becomes its Life, for the outward Mercury, which has ruled the Life, returns not again, it has only been for a Time a Mirror of the Eternal, but he is changed into another Source, for being suffocated, he passes again into the Mystery, from whence he at first proceeded in the Creation of the World, and the Body also goes into the same Mystery.
27. Thus it remains, and belongs yet to another Motion of the Deity, viz. to a Separating, where the Evil, wherein the Death was, shall be separated from the Good, and the Verbum Fiat shall restore and bring forth that which has fallen into it in Death.
28. The Physician is to know, that in the strongest Mercury, which is most poisonful, the highest Tincture lies, but not in Mercury's own Property, which must be broken; for his own Property, even from the Centre, is the anxious poisonful Life: But he has another Property in him, viz. an Oil from the Light, whereby he is so strong and potent, which is his Food and Preservation; if this may be separated from him, it becomes a tincturing and Mighty Enkindling of all obscured Lives, viz. of all Diseases and Sicknesses, for in this Oil lies the Joyful Life, and it is an Hunger after Life, viz. that it Might enkindle the weak, and lift it up on high.
29. In a Toad, Viper or Adder, or the like poisonful Beasts, Worms, or Insects, the highest Tincture is to be found, if they are reduced into an oily Substance, and the Wrath of Mercury separated from them; for all Life, both external and internal, consists in Poison and Light, as we understand, that the Wrath and Anger-Fire of God is a Cause of the divine Joyfulness: The like also we are to know is externally; for all Life that is void of the poisonful Mercury is mort, and an Abominate, and accounted as dead.
30. Now Mercury is an Enkindler of the Fire, and every moving Life consists in the Fire; and though some Creatures dwell in the Water, yet Fire is their Life, viz. the Poison-Gall, wherein Mercury Manages the Life; but the Water in the Gall is a Poison, wherein an Oil is hid, in which the Life in Mercury does burn and shine; of which thou hast a Similitude: If in a Creature there be a strong poisonful Mercury, of a dry Quality, that Creature is strong, bold, courageous, and potent, which has also a clear Oil in it; for the fiery Property of the Mercury consumes the waterish, but if its Fat be enkindled, it yields a clear Light; much more would it be, if the watery Property were separated from the oleous.
The Seventh Chapter.
How Adam in Paradise, and how Lucifer was a fair Angel, and how they were corrupted and spoiled through Imagination and Pride.
Process.
1. We will give an Occasion of Consideration to the earnest Searcher and Seeker, and if he apprehends our Meaning he shall indeed be able to find the noble Philosopher's Stone, but so that he be chosen thereto by God, and his Life also stands in the heavenly Mercury, otherwise we are Mystery to him; and we will represent it to him in Similitudes, in the most manifest, and yet mystical Manner.