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. The heavenly Property sets forth its Signature with fair Colours of the Leaves on the Blossoms; and the earthly [represents its Signature] by the green Leaves [or Sprigs]; about the Blossom; but seeing this Kingdom of the outward World is only a Time (in which the Curse is,) and Adam could not stand in Paradise, the paradisical Property soon passes away with its Signature, and changes itself into the Corn which grows in the Blossom; therein the Property of the inward and outward Sun, viz. of the inward and outward Power, is couched, each Property in its Principle; for God has Cursed the Earth, and therefore let none think that the outward is divine, only the divine Power penetrates and tinctures the outward [Being;] for God said, The Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpent's Head: This is now effected after the Curse in all Things which approach near the Deity, wherein Mercury is a Poison; there God bruises its Head with the inward and outward Sun, and takes away the poisonful Might in the Anger.
25. O that you would but learn to understand, dear Sirs and Brethren, wherewith you are to Cure; not with the angry Mercury, which in many an Herb is an Evil Poison but with the inward Mercury: If you would be called Doctors and Masters, then you ought also to know how you may change the outward Mercury in the Sulphur into Love, that he may be delivered from the Anguish-Source, and brought into a Joyfulness, viz. that the earthly [Being] be turned into an heavenly, the Death into Life; this is your Doctorship in the right Meaning, and not by the Officer of Reason only.
26. God has placed Man above the Officer, and ordained him in the Understanding to his own Dominion: He has Ability to change Nature, and to turn the Evil into Good, provided that first he has changed himself, otherwise he cannot; so long as he is dead in the Understanding, so long he is the Servant and Slave of the Officer; but when he is made alive in God, then the Officer is his Servant.
27. Ye haughty Caps, let it be told you; Pride, and your own Honour, and the earthly Lust of the Flesh, lies in your Way, so that you are not Masters in the Mysteries, but blind Children; you will not lay your Hands upon the Coals, but you take Money from the poor and distressed, and give that to many an one, which had been far better he had never bought, for which you must give a severe and strict Account.
28. Thus it is likewise with the Sulphurean Seething in the Earth with the Metals, the Power is stronger in Metals than in the Herbs, the Tincture is more heavenly than earthly, if the Artist affords it his Help, then it changes itself, viz. the earthly into an heavenly, which notwithstanding comes to pass in many Places without the Artist's Ingenuity; as we see, how Mercury in Sulphur apprehends the heavenly Tincture in its Boiling, whereby he changes his made Essence (which he makes in the Sulphur) into Gold and Silver by the Power and Efficacy of the Tincture, understand, by that Part of the heavenly Property; for out of the Earth, or out of the mortified Property in the Salniter, no Gold can be made, for there is no Fixedness therein.
29. Now we are thus to consider of this Process of the Boiling in the Sulphur in the Earth: Where the Earth is in any Place Sulphureous in the Saturnine Property, wherein the Sun bears chief Rule, there is such a Boiling; the outward Sun Hungers after the inward, which dwells in its own Principle in the Center in Sulphur, and sets its Desire upon Time; for the Time, viz. the Creature, longs after Eternity, viz. after the Liberty, to be freed from Vanity; as the Scripture says, That all Creatures do earnestly long with us to be freed from Vanity.
30. Even here the Liberty gives itself into the Solar Property into the Time, and when Mercury tastes it, he becomes Joyful, and turns his Wheel in the Joy; then Saturn impresses the Meekness; and Mars, which arises in the Mercurial Wheel in the Impression, gives the Fire-Soul thereinto, so that there is a driving forth and Growth; for the Liberty puts itself forth in Mercury's Property, and Mercury continually separates Saturn and Mars from it; for he will have a fair and pure Child to his Joy, he suffers Venus to remain on the Child, for she is in Property akin to the Child: Copper is nighest to Gold by Reason of the Materia, it wants only the Tincture; Mars holds him too hard in Possession; if he may be got out, then it is Gold, which the Artist does well understand.