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

14. There now it was tried whether the Image of God would stand, seeing internally there was God's Love-Fire, and externally the Baptism of the Water of eternal Life: Here the Soul was tempted, whether it would be a King, and an angelical Throne instead of the fallen Angel, and possess the elected Throne of God in the royal Office, from which Lucifer was taken, and thrust into the, Darkness, viz. into the Throne of Poison and Death, but seeing he stood (in that the Soul did resign and submit its Will alone into God's Love-Fire, and desired no earthly Food, nor the earthly Kingdom Good and Evil for outward Dominion) the Process to the Universal, viz. to the Restoration of all that which Adam had lost, did further proceed and go on: He turned Water in to Wine.

15. Ye Physicians, observe this, it concerns you in your Process, you must also go the same Way to Work: He healed the Sick; so you must likewise make the Form in your poisonful Mercury whole and Sound by the Power of the philosophical Baptism: He made the dead alive again, the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear, the blind to see, and cleansed the Lepers; all this must go before, that all the Forms in Mercury may be pure, Sound, and living, which Mercury himself does make after the Baptism and Temptation; as the living speaking Mercury did this in the Person of Christ; the Artist cannot do it, only there must be Faith, for Christ also testifies, that he could not do many Wonders at Capernaum, only heal a few Diseased; for the Faith of those at Capernaum would not enter into the Divine Mercury of Christ.

16. So that we see there, that the Person of Christ, viz. the Creature, could not Work the Wonders in its own Power, but the Mercury, viz. the living speaking Word in him, for the Person did cry and call into God, viz. into the speaking Word, and set its Desire thereinto; as we may see in the Mount of Olives where he prayed, that he sweat Drops of Blood; and by Lazarus, when he would raise him up, he said, Father, hear me; but I know that thou always hearest me; yet because of those that stand by, I say it, that they may believe that thou workest by me.

17. Thus the Artist must not arrogate any Thing to himself, the Mercury does itself, after the philosophical Baptism, Work these Wonders before it manifests the Universal, for all the seven Forms of Nature must be crystallized and purified, if the Universal shall be revealed, and each Form carries a peculiar Process when it is to be brought out of the Property of the Wrath, and entered into the pure and clear Life; and it must transmute itself into the crystalline Sea which stands before the Throne of the Ancient in the Revelation, and change itself into Paradise; for the Universal is paradisical; and Christ also came for that Reason into our Humanity, that he Might again open or make manifest the Universal, viz. the Paradise again in Man: The speaking Word in Christ wrought Wonders through all the seven Prop-erties or Forms, through the expressed Word in the Humanity, before the whole Universal was manifest in the Body of the human Property, and the Body glorified.

18. Even thus it is in the philosophical Work, When the Mercury shut up in Death receives into it the Baptism of its Refreshment in Love, then all the seven Forms manifest themselves in this Property, as it came to pass in the Process of Christ in his Miracles, but as yet they are not perfect in the Operation of the Manifestation of their Properties.

19. The Universal is not yet there, till all seven give their Will into one, and forsake their Property in the Wrath, and depart from it with their Will, and take into them the Love-Property: They must take in the Will of the Nothing, that their Will be a Nothing, and then it can subsist in the Wrath of the Fire, and there is no further Turba therein; for so long as the Desire of the Wrath is in the Form, it is adverse and opposite to the second Form, and inflames the second Form with its wrathful Property, that is, it strikes the Signature of the second, and awakens it in the Wrath, and then the Voice or Sound of the second enkindles the first Form's Property in Mercury, and so no Form can attain to any Perfection, that it Might enter into Love.

20. Therefore the Artist can effect nothing, unless he gives a Meat to the Forms, which they all desire, and Love to eat; wherein there is no Turba: Now the Prop-erties cannot eat, seeing their Mouth is frozen up in the Impression of Saturn; the Artist must first open their Mouth, and make them alive in their Zeal, that all the Forms may be hungry, and then if there be Manna, they all eat together of it, and so the precious Grain of Mustard-Seed is sown.