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

76. Thus likewise the Sun of the outward World, which is a Figure of the inward all-essential Sun, must stand still with its Splendour in the Darkness, from the sixth Hour unto the ninth, which is even the Time of Adam's Sleep when he entered with the Desire into the Centre of the eternal Nature, viz. into the Birth, where the Love and Anger Part themselves into two Centres, and would prove the cold and hot Fire, which took him, and did Powerfully work in him. Here are three Hours according to the Ternary, and in the Grave three Days according to the Time, viz. according to the Humanity.

77. When Adam was in the Image of God, and was neither Man nor Woman, but both; he stood forty Days in Paradise without wavering, and when he fell he stood even till the third Day, viz. forty Hours in the Sleep, even till God did make or build the Woman out of him. Thus Israel must be tempted forty Days on Mount Sinai, whether they would live in the Obedience of God under the Wonders and mighty acts; and when it could not be, God gave them the Law of his Covenant as a Mirror of that which was promised in the Covenant; therefore the Temptation of the Body was upon them forty Years, that the Body must eat Manna to try whether Man could be remedied: And when the Body [or outward Person] could not stand, then Joshua brought them through the Water with the Covenant of the Type, where Israel must serve with Sacrifices in the Covenant in the Type of the final Accomplishment, till the Time of Restitution came in: And then the valiant Champion in Battle stood forty Days in the Wilderness in the Temptation, and stood out the first Trial of Adam in Paradise; and the three Hours of Darkness on the Cross are the three Hours of Temptation of Christ, when the Devil tempted him: And again the forty Hours of Christ in the Grave are the forty Days of Adam in Paradise, and the forty Days of Moses upon the Mount; and the forty years in the Wilderness, and the forty Days after the Resurrection before the Ascension, are even one and the same: And now when the Champion had stood out Adam's Trial, the Soul was tempted forty Days in the human Property, whether it would eat of God's Word, and live in full resigned Obedience in the Will of God, and be a true Image, Likeness, and Similitude of the divine Power in the unsearchable Eternity, according to the Trinity of the Deity.

78. In the like Manner let the Philosopher observe, that the Essence of Time does also stand in such a Property, for Man was created out of the Essence of Time into an Image, as an Extract of all Essences, a complete Image and Likeness according to Time and Eternity, ruling and standing in the Time and in the Eternity as an Instrument of the great infinite God, with whom, by and with his Spirit, he would make and do what he pleased.

79. Now Man is the Instrument of God, with [or by] whom he manifests his Hiddenness both in his own human Property, viz. in the Essence and Image of God; and then also through Man, as with the Instrument in the Mother of all Beings, as in the grand Mystery, viz. in the Soul of the great World.

80. Man has Power so far as he goes, as an Instrument of God in divine Obedience, as his Spirit guides and leads him, that he can introduce the Earth which stands in the Curse of God into the Benediction, and make of Death's-Anguish the highest triumphant Joy in the outward pregnant Mother; but he himself does it not, only his will labours with the Understanding therein, and conjoins the Compacta, which belong together, as Life and Death which stand opposite to one another: These he must join together, and bring them into one by such an Art as Time and Eternity are united by and in the Man Christ, and by him all those which give their Will thereinto.