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.
11. And in the Dying of the Fire we are to understand the Oil, whence the Fire receives its shining Light, in which the true Life is understood; for that which proceeds forth in the Fire-Death with the Desire to be delivered and freed from the Fire-Source, that is a Desire of Meekness, and takes its Original in the first Will to Nature, in which the eternal Nothing brings itself with its Lubet into a Desire.
12. This Lubet brings forth itself through the cold and hot Death (through both the Dyings) again into the Liberty, viz. into the Nothing; and so it is manifested in the austere Impression through the Fire, and brought into a Principle, and yet it is not either of the Fire or of the Cold, but so is its Manifestation.
13. But seeing the eternal Lubet to Nature introduces itself with Nature into a Desire; thereupon this Desire cannot die either in the Cold or Heat, for it takes its origin neither in the Heat or Cold, but in the Nothing; and so it is, after it proceeds from the Dying in the Fire, again desiring, namely of its own Property, and impresses itself, for in the Fire it has taken the Impression.
14. Now it cannot conceive anything in its Impression but an Essence according to its Desire, which is now Water; understand according to the dark Impression's Property it is Water, and according to the Fire it is Oil; and that which in the cold Impression is wholly enclosed in the Hardness, as a Conception according to the Wrath's Property, is Earth.
15. Thus the wrathful fiery Desire draws continually the same Air, Water, and Oil into itself, and devours it, and so the Fire-Wrath is changed in the Air, and Oil, and Water, into a shining Light; for the Nothing desires Nothing else but Power and Lustre, and so it makes itself manifest, and brings itself into Essence: And the Spirit which proceeds forth out of the Fire burning in the Oil, viz. in the Light from the Fire and Light, gives Reason and Understanding; for it has originally taken its rise in the Nothing, and was the Desire to Nature; and has brought itself through all the Properties of Nature, through Heat and Cold, through the Dying in the Fire through the Light, and dwells again in the Nothing.
16. It is a Prover and Knower of all the Properties, for it is generated through all, and proceeded forth from all; it is as a NOTHING, and yet has all Things, and passes through Heat and Cold, and yet none of them apprehend it; as we see that the Life of the Creature dwells in Heat and Cold, and yet the right Life is neither hot nor cold.
17. Now therefore understand us right: This Birth in the Eternity is Spiritual, but in the Time it is Material; for I cannot say of God that he is Darkness and Fire, much less Air, Water, or Earth; but in his eternal Desire he has so formed himself with the Time in the Place of this World into such an Essence, which he Formed in the speaking Mercury according to the Properties of the Will, and brought with the expressed Word into such a Formation according to the Properties of the Desire in the eternal Nature, viz. in the Verbum Fiat.
18. Now the expressed Word, viz. the eternal Nature's Property is understood in Sulphur, for therein is the sevenfold Wheel of the Birth, which in the Spirit, viz. in the first conception to Nature, is a Constellation, and divides itself out of the Constellation in its own peculiar Birth into seven Properties, and out of the seven Properties into four Elements.
19. This Constellation is a Chaos, wherein all Things lie, but hidden; and it is the first Body, but Spiritual; and the sevenfold Wheel is the first Explication [or Working forth] of the Chaos, and makes the second Body, viz. the Reason; the second manifests the first, and it is also a Spiritual Body; the third Body is Elementary, a Cabinet of both the first, and is a visible tangible Body.
20. The first Body, viz. the Chaos, or the first Constellation, seeing it is Spiritual, is the Word expressed out of the eternal Conception; the same has again its speaking in itself, which is the Mercurial Wheel in the Sulphur with the seven Forms, which speaks forth again from itself the four Elements.
21. Thus the one proceeds forth from the other; the first before the Chaos is the Lubet of Eternity in the Abyss, which takes in itself a Will to its own Manifestation; this is all God; and the Will conceives in itself a Desire in the Lubet; this is the Chaos, or first Astrum, wherein consists the eternal Nature, which with the Desire to Nature introduces itself into seven Forms, as is before mentioned, and so manifests the Chaos, viz. the eternal hidden Wisdom of God; and with the Desire in the Mercurial Wheel the Element is Formed, Being a Spiritual Body of the Mercurial Life.