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.
31. And now to know how this may be brought to pass, we must consider the Generation in Sulphur, from whence Joy and Sorrow do arise; for the poisonful Mercury may not otherwise be resisted, and also Nothing can resist it, but its own Mother which brings it forth, in whose Womb it is couched: As Nothing can resist the Cold but the Heat only, and yet the Heat is the Cold's Son; so also the poisonful Mercury must be resisted with its own Child, which he himself generates in his Mother's Womb out of Heat and Cold out of himself.
32. As the Love proceeding from the Heart of the Father, which is his Son, withstands the Anger of the Father, whereby the Father is merciful; so likewise it is in the expressed Word or Mercury.
33. Now understand it thus: I do not mean that the cold Poison of Mercury should be, or could be resisted with the enkindled Heat; no, but if the cold Poison be enkindled, then the Remedy must be from the same Likeness; but it must be first freed from the Coldness, viz. from the enflamed cold Wrath, and brought into Meekness, and then it does also still and appease the Hunger of the Cold's Desire in the Disease of the Body: For if enkindled Heat be administered to the enkindled Cold, then the Cold is dismayed at the Heat, and falls into a Swound, viz. into Death's Property; and so the Heat becomes in this Death's Property a Poison-Life, viz. an anxious Sting; and the Mercurial Wheel runs into Sadness, viz. into Sickness, or a crazy Dotage, wherein all Joy is forgotten.
34. For if the Life shall subsist in its own Right, then the Heat and Cold must stand in Equality, that so they may Accord one with another, and no Enmity or Disaffection be at all in any of them; the one must not exceed or over-top the other, but they must stand in one Will; for the enkindled Cold desires no Heat, but only Likeness: Every Hunger desires only Likeness for its Food, but if the Hunger be too strongly enkindled in the Cold, such a Cure is not to be given it which is so enkindled; indeed it must be in as high a Degree in the Cold; but the violent Force must be first taken away from it; so that it may be only as the Mother which generates it, not according to the enkindled Poison-Source, but according to the Mother's Joy; and so the Sickness, viz. the Poison in the Anguish, will be likewise changed into such a Joy, and so the Life receives again its first Property.
35. The raw opposite Body does not belong to the Cure, but its Oil, which must be mollified with its own Love, understand with a meek Essence, which also belongs to the same Property; for the seven Forms of Nature are only one in the Centre: Therefore that Oil must be brought so far in the Wheel, till it enters into its highest Love-Desire, and then it is rightly fit for Cure; for there is Nothing so evil but it has a Good in it, and that very Good resists its Evil [or poisonful Malignity].
36. Thus also in the same Sickness it may withstand the enkindled Wrath in the Body; for if the cold Poison be enkindled in the Body, then its Good falls into Faintness; and if it cannot obtain the Likeness of its Essence for its Help, it remains in Faintness; and then the enkindled Wrath also does immediately consume itself, and falls also into Faintness; and so the natural Death is in both, and the moving Life in the Body ceases; but if it attains the Likeness, then it gathers Strength again, and the enkindled Hunger of the Disease must cease.
37. In like Manner also we are to consider of the Heat, which needs no cold Property, but the Likeness; yet it must be first freed from the Wrath of the same Likeness, and brought into its own highest Joy and Good, so that this Likeness does not effectually operate either in Heat or Cold, but in its own Love-Desire, viz. in its best Relish, and so it will bring the Heat in the Body into such a Desire: All Corruptions in the Body proceed from the Cold; if the Brimstone be too vehemently enkindled by the Heat, then the Right and Property of the Cold dies, and enters into Sorrow.
38. Mercury is the moving Life in all, and his Mother is Sulphur; now the Life and Death lie in Sulphur, viz. in the wrestling Mercurial Wheel. In the Sulphur there is Fire, Light, and Darkness; the Impression causes Darkness, Coldness, and Hardness, and also great Anguish: and from the Impression of the Attraction Mercury takes his Rise, and he is the Sting of the Attraction, viz. the Motion or Disquietude, and arises in the great Anguish of the Impression, where Coldness, viz. a dark cold Fire, by Reason of the Hardness, arises in the Impression; and in the Sting of Anguish, viz. in the Disquietude, an hot Fire arises.