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

39. For the Center of Wrath, viz. the Dark World’s Property, was manifest in him, in the poisonful Death’s Property, as the Mercury in Man is yet to this Day so poisonful, and of a venomous Source; whereas indeed he is changed in the vital Light into a Solar Property, but yet the Poison and Property of Death hangs to it, and it is his Root; as we plainly see, that as soon as the Instrument of his Martial fiery Property’s Signature or Form is a little struck or played upon, that his Evil poisonful fiery Property comes forth, and shews itself, and inflames the Body, that it even trembles and shakes for the very Poison of Wrath, and will ever enter into the enkindled Poison-Source in him who has awakened and enkindled the same, and assimilate in his Malice with the malignant Fomenter’s Malice, and wrestle in the poisonful Property’s Right; and then must the Body set to its Strength as a Servant, and accomplish the Poison’s Will, and wrangle and contest with his Adversary, and beat him, or be beaten by him; let it be either by Hand-blows, or Words; it is all in this Property and Desire of this poisonful Mercury.

40. From hence arises all War and Contention; Namely, from the Dominion of God’s Anger in the corrupt and enkindled Mercury of the expressed Word, which does so act its Delight and Sport in the poisonful Wrath’s and the Dark World’s Property in Man.

41. Therefore the Warrior is a Servant of God's Anger: He is the Ax wherewith the angry Husbandman cuts up his Thorns and Briars from off his Ground: He is the chief Worker and Accomplisher of the wrathful Anger of God: God's Anger according to his Fire's Property will have it so, and not his Love; and he that suffers himself to be made use of thereunto, he serves the Anger of God according to the dark and Fire-World's Desire and Property, which in the heavy Fall of Adam has manifested itself in the human Property, and brought Man, viz. the angelical Image, into an half Devilish Vizard and Likeness; in which Property and Image of his Will in the expressed creaturely Mercury or vital Word he cannot inherit God's Kingdom, but must be born anew in his Mercury and Will, with and in Christ, in God's Love, viz. in the holy speaking Mercury and Word of Life, that a new obedient Will wholly resigned into God's Love may proceed from his creaturely Mercury, which neither Wills or acts any Thing but what the Will of the speaking divine Mercury wills, who in his Self-hood, and Selfish Arrogation in his own Will, is as dead, that he may be the Instrument of the Great God, whereby he should act, Work, and do how and what he pleases: And then is God all in all in him, his Will and Deed, and he is a Branch in the great Tree which draws Sap, Power and Life from the Tree of God, and grows and lives in him, and brings forth his Fruit; then is the Mercury of the human Life a procreated or expressed Fruit, which grows in the Paradise-Tree of God, and gives forth its Note and Sound, and strikes the Signature in the speaking Word of God, viz. God's Harp and Lute in his Praise, for which End Man is created, not that he should necessarily play upon the Instrument of Anger and Death according to the Devil's Will.

42. The Devil has given himself to be such a Lutanist who contrives and helps to act and drive on the Play in the Wrath, viz. in the Darkness: He is the Instrument and Actor in the Wrath of the eternal Nature, which has its Effects and Achievements with him and in him, as its Instrument: The like also must the wicked Man do, as Saint Paul speaks thereof; The holy Man is unto God a sweet Savour unto Life, and the wicked a sweet Savour unto Death. All whatever does live and move must enter into the Glory of God; one Works in his Love, the other in his Anger: All is gene-rated and created in the infinite Being to the Manifestation of the infinite great God; out of all the Properties of Evil and Good, Creatures were brought forth by the Will of the speaking Word; for the Property of the Darkness and the Fire was as well in. the Speaking as the Property of the Light; and therefore there are Evil and good Creatures.

43. But the Angels and Men were spoken forth in the Image of God's Love; they ought not to speak and incline their Will into the Fire and dark World; and introduce their Desire thereinto; also not at all will to be their own, but continue stedfast in the Resignation in the speaking Will of God, as a Form of the speaking Will, and bear no Inclination to any Thing, but only to the Speaking; in which Figure they stand as an Image or Platform of the Expressing, as a spoken Word, wherewith the speaking Word beholds itself in its own Likeness, whereby it there manifests the eternal Knowledge of the Eternal Mind, and sets the Spirit's Will into a Form, and plays therewith.