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.
75. And though much Might be mentioned here, that even Reason Might obtain open Eyes, yet it is not to be done; for the wicked would grow worse, and more full of Pride; therefore seeing he is not worthy of Paradise, and also cannot enter thereinto, no heavenly Jewel shall be given him: And therefore God hides it, and permits him to whom he reveals it, to speak of it no otherwise than magically; therefore no one attains it, unless he himself be a Magus in Christ, unless Paradise be manifest in his internal Man; and then he may find, if he be born to it, and chosen by God.
The Eighth Chapter.
Of the fiery Sulphureous Seething of the Earthy and how the Growth is in the Earth; also of the Separation of the several Kinds of Creatures: An open Gate for the wise Seekers.
1. LET the Reader but consider what before is written concerning the Center of the Generation of all Essences, and then he may easily proceed here: All whatever is corporeal, let it be either Spirit or Body, consists in a Sulphureous Property, the Spirit in such a Spiritual Property, and the Body out of the Spirit in such a corporeal Property.
2. For all Things are risen from the Eternal Spirit, as a Likeness of the Eternal; the invisible Essence, which is God and the Eternity, has in its own Desire introduced itself into a visible Essence, and manifested itself in a Time, so that he is as a Life in the Time, and the Time is in him as it were dead, as a Master that makes his Work with an Instrument, and the Instrument is mute to the Master, and yet it is the Making, the Master only guides it; even so are all Things confined into Limit, Measure, and Weight, according to the eternal Generation; and they run on in their Operation and Generation according to the Right and Property of Eternity.
3. And God has appointed over this great Work only one Matter and Protector, which Governor, can alone Manage the Work, which is his Officer, viz. the Soul of the great World, wherein all Things lie; [and] he has appointed a Type of its Likeness as the Reason over this Officer, which represents to the Officer what he is to do and make; and this is the Understanding, viz. God's own Dominion wherewith he rules the Officer: Now the Understanding shews to the Officer what the Property of each Thing is, how the Separation and Degrees proceed from each other; for all Things are contained in the Sulphureous Body, and Mercury is Sulphur's Life, and the Salt is the Impression, that preserves the Body from falling to Ashes, so that the Spirit is known in a palpable Essence.
4. The Property of Mercury is in Sulphur as the Boiling of a Water; Sulphur is the Water wherein Mercury seethes, and produces continually two Forms out of the Water; viz. one oleous, living, from the Liberty of the divine Power's Property; and one mortal from the Dissolution in the Fire in the Salnitral Flagrat.
5. The oily is in Stones and Metals, Herbs, Trees, Beasts and Men; and the mortal [Property] is in the Earth, in the Water, in the Fire and Air; likewise the oleous Property is in these four Forms {viz. in the Earth, Water, Fire, and Air) as a Spirit or Life, and these four Properties are as a dead Body, in which the Oil is a Light or Life, from whence the Desire, viz. the Growth, arises as a Springing out of the dead Property, which is the vegetative Life, a springing, budding, and growing out of Death.
6. But now the oily Property could not be a Life, if it were not in the Anguish of Death; the Anguish makes it to pullulate or move, in that its Will is to fly from, and press out of the Anguish, and forces itself eagerly forwards, from whence the Growth arises: Thus must Death be a Cause of the Life, that the Life may be stirring [or active,] and therefore Mercury is the true moving Life.
7. In the mortal Property he is Evil, and is called the Life of Death, of Hell, and the Anger of God; and in the oily Property he is good, from the Efficacy of the Meekness and Liberty of God; and he is the Officer's Faber, whereby the Officer distinguishes the Degrees in the vegetative Life, [separating] the living [Being] from the mortal, the heavenly Essentiality from the dead or earthly, and appoints it into two Kingdoms; viz. the Good in the oleous [Property] into a heavenly [Being,] viz. into a Light, and the mortal [Part] into the Darkness.