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

41. This being done, the Man Christ was tempted forty Days, so long as the first Adam was alone in Paradise, and was tempted: Then the outward earthly Food was taken from him, and the Humanity must eat with its Desire of God's Essence; there was represented unto him all whatever the first Adam had amused himself in, and whereinto he imagined, and wherein he was captivated, as in the Death of the Night. This the Devil, being a Prince of this World, now represented unto him in the Property of Death, as he had represented it to Adam through the Serpent, whereon Adam and his Wife did amuse themselves, and entered thereinto with the Imagination.

42. Now behold! What did Christ do when he was to undergo the Combat of this Trial, when the human Essence was to enter again with its Desire into the Deity, and eat of God's Bread, that is, of the divine Essentiality? He went to Jordan, and was baptized of John; With what? With the Water in Jordan, and with the Water in the Word of Life, viz. with divine Essence, which must tincture our mortal Essence in the outward Humanity of Christ, from whence the divine Hunger arose in the human Essence, that he desired to eat of God's Bread: Therefore the Spirit of God took him and carried him into the Wilderness, and there the Father's Property in the Wrath did oppose him through the Prince in the Wrath, and there God's Bread, and also the Bread of God's Anger according to the Death's Desire, was tendered to him; now it was tried, whether the Soul, which was generated and created out of the Father's Property, would after this Tincturation of Baptism enter again into the Love-Desire, viz. into the Nothing out of all Source.

43. What is hereby intimated to the Magus? A Mystery is hinted to him: If he wilt do Wonders with Christ, and tincture the corrupt Body to the New-Birth, he must first be baptized, and then he gets an Hunger after God's Bread, and this Plunger has in it the Verbum Fiat, viz. the Arebeus to the new Generation; that is, the Mercury: But I do not speak here of a Priest’s Baptism; the Artist must understand it magically, God and Man must first come together ere thou baptizest, as it came to pass in Christ: The Deity first entered into the Humanity, but the Humanity could not presently comprehend it, till it was quickened through Baptism, and the Hunger, viz. the dead Mercury in the human Essence, was again stirred up in the heavenly Part.

44. And here began again the human Eating; viz. the Mercury received again divine Property and Will; and then the inward Mercury (understand Man's Property) did eat in the Taste of the divine Word of God's Essence: And the four Elemental Properties did eat of the Night's Property so long, till the human Mercury sublimed its Life, and changed the four Elements into one: And the Life tinctured Death, which was done on the Cross: Then the four Elements departed from him; that is, he died to Time, viz. to the Night, that is, to the four Elements, and arose in the pure Element, and lived to Eternity.

45. The Magus must keep and observe this Process also with his Alchymy. Dost thou ask how? I will not put it into thy Mouth by Reason of the Wicked, who is not worthy of it: Observe only the Baptism, that thou baptizest the dead Mercury, which lies in the heavenly Essentiality, enclosed and shut up in Impotency with its own Baptism, [and mark] of what Essence he is in a Thing; but thou must have his divine Water, and also the earthly; for the earthly Mercury cannot else receive the Divine [Being] except the divine Mercury receives of its Power, whereupon it stirs and Hungers: Then the heavenly [Mercury] seeks, but yet finds not divine Essence about it for its Food; thereupon it brings its Will through the Desire of Death into itself, viz. into the Verbum Fiat, which has made and produced it, and sets its Hunger upon the same; whereupon the divine Essence inclines itself to it, and will become Joyfulness in him; even then arises the Beginning of the new Body out of the divine Essentiality, which the Desire nourishes and brings up; and when the new Life is born, viz. the Day, then the four Elements die: And then the new Body is shut up in the dark Death, and on the third Day it rises again from Death; for the Night is swallowed up in the Grave, and the Morning rises.

46. If thou didst understand this, then hadst thou the Pearl: But my Intent and Purpose is otherwise; I will shew thee Christ along with it, and also this Pearl; therefore none shall find it but he that Loves Christ.