The Signature of All Things — trans. John Ellistone (1651)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
The translator’s English as printed (John Ellistone). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
16. But seeing now my Soul and Spirit lives in his Resurrection, and his Voice [Air or Breath] is in me, according to the Resignation in him, as St. Paul says, Our Conversation is in Heaven, from whence we wait for the Saviour Jesus Christ; therefore also his Voice, which is in me in that I am [or live] no longer to my Self-hood, but he alone [is and lives in me,] shall raise up my dead Body, which I resign to him, and bring it into his first Image, to which he created it.
17. Thus now I live in God, and my Self-hood does not know it, for it lives not in God, but in itself (God is indeed in it, but it does not apprehend him), and hides the Pearl which I am in Christ; not I, but he in his Humanity in my Creature in himself: And thus I speak and write of the great Mystery of all Beings, not that I have apprehended it in my Self-hood, but he strikes my Signature in my Desire, which presses into him, as he pleases.
18. I am known to myself, but not in my Self-hood, but in his mirror which of Grace he has put into me, thereby to allure my Self-hood to him, viz. into the Resignation; and so likewise, dear Brethren, it shall again be represented to you out of his Glass, which he has set forth through my Capacity in him, as his Instrument.
19. Thus it goes also in the philosophic Work; Sulphur, Mercury, and Sal are entered by the Curse of God into their Self-hood, viz. into a Self-Working and Living; all does now Work in the Curse and Anger of God according to the Property of the first Principle; if God had not placed the Sun as a Nature-God of the outward visible World therein, which tinctures every Working Life, even everything which grows and moves, all would be in the dark Death's Impression, viz. in the Abyss of Hell.
20. Now if anything shall be freed from this Self-hood, viz. from the wrathful Death, and be again brought into the Universal, viz. into the highest Perfection, then it must die wholly to its Self-hood, and enter into the Stillness, viz. into the Death of the Resignation at Nature's End: Mars must wholly lose the Might of the Fire and Wrath, and Mercury also his Poison-Life; Saturn must be a Death to himself, insomuch that the Artist sees Nothing but the great Darkness, and even then the Light appears in the Resignation; for St. John says, The Light shineth in the Darkness, and the Darkness apprehended it not; that is, in its Self-hood, viz. in its own Will and Working it cannot apprehend it; but in the Resignation the Nothing, viz. the Liberty of God shines in it.
21. For the Nothing manifests itself in its Lubet out of the Liberty in the Darkness of Death; for the Nothing will not be a Nothing, and also cannot be a Nothing, and likewise it cannot otherwise manifest itself, but according to the Property of the free Lubet, which is now fixed [or steadfast], and in it also as a Nothing, for there is no Turba therein; the Self-Will and Hunger is dead, and in the Nothing, and the Lubet of the eternal Liberty is its Life: Now seeing that the highest Being has once moved itself, and come into a visible comprehensible Essence, it does again Figure [or Form] that same Essence, which departs from its Self-hood, and enters into the Nothing, into such a Being [or Essence] as it was before the Times of the World: But seeing the Verbum Fiat stands yet to this Day creating of the corporal Essence, it does again make a fixed perfect Essence; as the like is brought to pass in the philosophic Work, where a new Life arises out of Death, as God does raise us up in himself in Christ, if we die to Self-hood, and wholly resign up ourselves to him.