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.
22. And thus when the expressed Mercury in the Sulphur of Saturn resigns its Selfhood into Venus, then the Verbum Fiat changes it again into such an Essence according to the Lubet of the Liberty; the Death arises in a new Body out of the Darkness of Death, in a white fair Colour, but as an hidden Lustre, wherein the Colour is not rightly and distinctly known, till it dissolves itself, and the Materia becomes desiring; then the Sun arises in the Centre, and Saturn in the Property of Jupiter and Venus in all the seven Forms (that is in the Verbum Fiat) as a new Creation, and the Desire of all the seven Forms tend to Sol's Lustre, viz. to the white and red Colour from the Fire and Light, which is the majestical [Colour, Lustre, or Glory].
23. Christ after his Resurrection walked forty Days in the Mystery of all the three Principles at once, in the Property of the first Adam after his Creation before his Sleep, and before his Eve was Formed, and appeared to his Disciples in his Property which he had here from the outward World, and did eat with them, and shewed them his assumed Humanity, and that he had in no wise wholly put it off.
24. Even so let the Artist understand us, that in the philosophic Work the first Matter does not wholly pass away or vanish, but it enters into the Death of the Life of its wrathful Property, and dies in the Curse of God, but rises again in its Former Being, which it had before the Curse of God: The Curse only is destroyed therein, and the first Life does again rise up therein, and therefore it is fixed, and subsists in the Fire, for it is dead to the Dominion of the four Elements, and lives in the fifth Essence; not that it has that same Life, but it stands still therein; yet the Spirit of the new-born Essence is a vegetative Life with its growing therein; its Lustre stands therein, it shews the first Adam in innocence, who stood likewise in such perfection.
25. And as Christ Tinctured our corrupt Humanity, in which Mercury was turned to Poison, with the heavenly Blood of the eternal divine Virginity and Essentiality, whereby the human Self-hood died in the Poison, and the resigned Life did again arise; so the poisonful Mercurial, Martial, and Saturnine Will and Desire die in the Blood of Venus in the philosophic Work, and both enter together into Death, and arise both together in one Love, in one Will.
26. Therefore let the Artist observe the Tincture; it is more noble and precious for Man's use in this valley of misery than the Body which arises in the Tincture; for the Spirit is the Life; the Body is only a Figure of the Life, and the Blood is a Mansion of the Spirit.
27. The Artist must well observe this; in the Blood of the young Man, when his Pearl gives itself to the three Murtherers, that it also sheds its Blood in and with the young Man's, then the Champion stands in Hell, and disclaims the human Self-hood: Then the white Lion appears upon his crimson-coloured Beast; even there lies the Cure of Sickness, and the Death of Death.
28. The Body is dissolved in the Blood of Love in the Death out of the earthly into an heavenly [Property]. The Tincture gives itself into the new Body; and afterwards, when the Body rises in Sol's Splendour, it also forsakes its Will; it resigns itself wholly into the Body's Essence, and becomes its beauty, Splendour, and Colour, which the Artist can never separate; for they are together in the fifth Essence, viz. in the Mystery of the Verbum Fiat, and belong to God's Motion of the final Day of Separation; in this Time to his own Manifestation unto his Honour, and Deeds of Wonder; but after this Time to the crystalline World in the Glassy Sea before the Ancient in the Apocalypse.
A Brief Summary of the Philosophic Work 29. Our Meaning might seem very difficult to the Reader, in that we go so far about and shew Christ all along therein; at which let no Man Wonder, we do not seek Gold, or any temporal Goods thereby, and drive Man into vain Curiosities; we speak only with the Children whom God has chosen thereunto; for the Time is born, where that which is lost shall be again found; yea not only the Universal for the Body of this World, but also for the Soul.