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.
19. The sixth Form is Mercury, viz. the Life and Separation, or the Form in the Love, and in the Anguish: In Saturn and Mars, on the one Part he is earthly according to the hard Impression, where his Motion and Hunger is a pricking, adverse, and (according to the Fire) a bitter Pain and Woe; and according to the Water in the earthly Sulphur, viz. in the Mortification, a Poison-Source.
20. And according to the other Part, according to the Lubet of the Liberty, he is the pleasant Property of Joy in Jupiter and Venus, also of springing and growing; and according to the Impression of the heavenly Saturn, and according to Mars in the Love-Desire, he is the Sound in the Spirit, understand, the Separator of the Sound, viz. of the Tone; also of all Pronunciations of Speeches, and all the SEVERAL Cries and Notes; all whatever Sounds is distinguished by his Might; Venus and Saturn carry his Lute, and he is the Lutanist, he strikes upon Venus and Saturn, and Mars gives him the Sound from the Fire; and thus Jupiter rejoices in Sol.
21. Here lies the Pearl, dear Brethren: Mercury makes the Understanding in Jupiter for he separates the Thoughts, and makes them act and move; he takes the Infinity of the Thoughts into his Desire, and makes them essential; this he does in Sulphur, and his Essence is the manifold Power of the Smell and Taste, and Saturn gives his Sharpness thereinto, so that it is Salt.
22. But I understand here the virtual Salt in the vegetable Life: Saturn makes the common Salt in the Water: He is an heavenly and an earthly Labourer, and labours in each Form according to the Property of the Form; as it is written, With the holy thou art holy, and with the perverse thou art perverse. In the holy Angels the heavenly Mercury is holy and divine, and in the Devils he is the Poison and Wrath of the Eternal Nature according to the dark Impression's Property, and so on through all Things, as the Property of each Thing is, so is its Mercury, viz. its Life; in the Angels he is the Hymn of God's Praise, and in the Devils he is the Cursing and Awakening of the opposite Will of the bitter poisonful Enmity.
23. Thus likewise it is to be understood in Men and all Creatures, in all whatever lives and moves; for the outward Mercury is the outward Word in the outward World: He is the outward Verbum, and Saturn with the Impression is his Fiat, which makes his Word corporeal; and in the inward Kingdom of the divine Power he is the eternal Word of the Father, whereby he has made all Things in the outward [Principle,] understand, with the Instrument of the outward Mercury.
24. The outward Mercury is the temporal Word, the expressed Word; and the inward [Mercury] is the Eternal Word, the speaking Word; the inward Word dwells in the outward, and makes through the outward all outward Things; and with the inward, inward Things: The inward Mercury is the Life of the Deity, and all divine Creatures and the outward Mercury is the Life of the outward World, and all external Corporality in Men and Beasts, in Vegetables and Animals, and makes a peculiar Principle, viz. a Likeness of the divine World, and this is the Manifestation of the divine Wisdom.
25. The seventh Form is called Luna, the amassed Essence: What Mercury has comprized in Sulphur, that is a corporeal or substantial Hunger of all Forms, the Property of all the six Forms lies therein, and it is as a corporeal Being of all the rest; this Property is as a Wife of all the other Forms; for the other Forms do all cast their Desire through Sol into Luna; for in Sol they are Spiritual, and in Luna corporeal: Therefore the Moon assumes to it the Sunshine, and shines from the Sun; whatever the Sun is, and makes in the Spirit-Life in itself, the same Luna is, and makes corporeal in itself.
26. It is heavenly and earthly, and rules the vegetative Life; it has the Menstruum, viz. the Matrix of Venus in it; all whatever is corporeal does congeal in its Property; Saturn is its Fiat, and Mercury is its Husband, which impregnates it, and Mars is its vegetable Soul, and the Sun is its Center in the Hunger, and yet not wholly in the Property, for it receives only the white Colour from the Sun, not the yellow, or the red, viz. the majestic; therefore in its Property lies Silver in Metals, and in the Property of Sol Gold; but seeing Sol is a Spirit without Essence, thereupon Saturn holds the Sun’s corporeal Essence in himself to lodge in; for he is the Fiat of the Sun; he keeps it Fruit up in his dark Cabinet, and does only preserve and keep it; for it is not his own Essence, till the Sun fends him his Faber Mercury, to whom he gives it, and to none else.