OF THE FIERY SULPHUREOUS SEETHING OF THE EARTH, AND HOW THE GROWTH IS IN THE EARTH; ALSO OF THE SEPARATION OF THE SEVERAL KINDS OF CREATURES: AN OPEN GATE FOR THE WISE SEEKERS 1. Let the reader but consider what before is written concerning the centre of the generation of all essences, and then he may easily proceed here: All whatever is corporeal, let it be either spirit or body, consists in a sulphureous property; the spirit in such a spiritual property, and the body out of the spirit in such a corporeal property. 2. For all things are risen from the eternal spirit, as a likeness of the eternal; the invisible essence, which is God and the eternity, has in its own desire introduced itself into a visible essence, and manifested itself in a time, so that he is as a life in the time, and the time is in him as it were dead; 1 as a master that makes his work with an instrument, and the instrument is mute to the master, and yet it is the making, the master only guides it; even so are all things confined into limit, measure, and weight, according to the eternal generation; and they run on in their operation and generation according to the right and property of eternity. 3. And God has appointed over this great work only one master and protector, which can alone manage the work, which is his officer, 2 viz. the soul of the great world, wherein all things lie; [and] he has appointed a type of its likeness as the reason over this officer, which represents to the officer what he is to do and make; and this is the understanding, viz. God's own dominion wherewith he rules the officer: Now the understanding shews to the officer what the property of each thing is, how the separation and degrees proceed from each other; for all things are contained 3 in the sulphureous body, and Mercury is Sulphur's life, and the salt is the impression, that preserves the body 4 from falling to ashes, so that the spirit is known in a palpable essence.
13. For there is a continual combat 3 in the earth; the eternity travels with longing through time to be free from vanity, and in its longing it gives itself to Mercury, as to its life and faber; and when Mercury obtains it in his hunger, he becomes joyful, and makes this free lubet corporeal in him, and there arises gold and silver, together with other metals and good herbs, all according to the powerful efficacy of each place; As the boiling 4 is in each place, so likewise is the metal, all according to the property of the seven forms of nature; that form which is chief in a place, according to the same property grows a metal, also herbs and trees. 14. Here the physicians must observe, that they learn distinctly to know what kind of property is the strongest in each thing with which they would cure; if they do not know it, they will oftentimes give their patients death: Also they must know, that they are to understand, and very exactly know the property of the patient, which of the properties among the seven forms of nature is the Mercury in Sulphur; for such a salt he also makes: Now if the physician gives him a contrary salt, Mercury is only thereby the more vehemently enraged, and made more venomous; but if he may obtain his own salt according to his own property (after which he hungers) then he 5 rejoices, and readily quits the poison-source in the fire of Mars. But the right physician has another cure, he first brings his Mercury with which he will cure out of death's anguish into the liberty: He may well cure, 6 the other is dangerous and uncertain; if he happens to cure, it is by chance, and very inconstant, and cannot cure any disease fundamentally; for the outward Mercury is shut up, it can reach no further than into the four elements, into the mortal essence; it is able to do nothing in the sidereal body: But if it be turned and introduced into the love, as is before mentioned, then it touches 7 the very root and ground, and renews it even to the divine power in the second principle. 15. We have an excellent resemblance of this in the blooming earth on the herbs; for in the earth Mercury is earthly and
19. For Jupiter is power, and Venus is love-desire, which hasten towards the sun, as towards their likeness; and the heaven, which is created out of the midst of the water, puts upon them its blue and green-coloured garment according to the stars’ might; for the spirit of the stars receives the new child also, and gives him its spirit and body, and rejoices therein: Now the forms are in contest, 2 and Mercury is the faber and separator; Saturn impresses, and Jupiter is the pleasant power in sulphur; Mars is the fire-source, viz. the might in sulphur; Venus is the water, viz. the sweet desire; Mercury is the life, Luna the body, and Sol the heart, viz. the centre to which all forms tend and press. 20. Thus the outward sun presses into the sun in the herb; and the inward sun presses into the outward, and there is a mere pleasing relish and delight of one essence in another; Saturn makes four, Jupiter makes a pleasant taste, Mars makes bitter, by reason of his anxious nature, Venus makes sweet, Mercury distinguishes the taste, Luna takes it into her sack and hatches it; for she is of an earthly and heavenly property, and she gives it the menstruum wherein the tincture lies. 21. Thus there is an instigation in the taste; each form hastens to the sweet water and the sun; Jupiter is pleasant, and ascends up aloft with the love-desire in the sweet source-water, wherein Mars rages, and thinks himself to be master in the house, seeing that he rules the fire-spirit in sulphur, at which Mercury is dismayed, that Mars does so disquiet him, and Saturn makes the flagrat corporeal according to his austere impression, and these are the knots upon the stalk; and the flagrat is salnitral, according to the third form of nature in the first impression to the spirit-life, viz. in the anguish-form, from whence the sulphur takes its original, and in the flagrat Mercury goes up in the salniter on the sides, and takes Venus also into it, viz. the love-desire, from whence grow twigs and branches on the stalk, trunk, or body, be they either herbs, trees, or shrubs; and each branch [or sprig] is then like to the whole plant. 3 22. But the sun continually by little and little deprives Mars
23. And paradise springs up [or opens], for the Sulphur and the salt in the Sulphur are here transmuted in the paradise, and the paradisical joy puts itself forth in the smell and taste. This is now the head or knob of the blossoms, wherein the corn grows; the lovely smell is in one part paradisical, viz. from the divine power, from the liberty; and on the other part earthly, according to the outward sun, and the outward world. 24. The heavenly property sets forth its signature with fair colours of the leaves on the blossoms; and the earthly [represents its signature] by the green leaves [or sprigs] about the blossom; but seeing this kingdom of the outward world is only a time (in which the curse is), and Adam could not stand in paradise, the paradisical property soon passes away with its signature, and changes itself into the corn which grows in the blossom; therein the property of the inward and outward sun, viz. of the inward and outward power, is couched, each property in its principle; for God has cursed the earth, and therefore let none think that the outward is divine, only the divine power penetrates and tinctures the outward [being]; for God said, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head:" This is now effected after the curse in all things which approach near the Deity, wherein Mercury is a poison; there God bruises its head with the inward and outward sun, and takes away the poisonful might in the anger. 25. O that you would but learn to understand, dear sirs and brethren, wherewith you are to cure; not with the angry Mercury, which in many an herb is an evil poison-source, but with the inward Mercury: If you would be called doctors and
29. Now we are thus to consider of this process of the boiling in the Sulphur in the earth: Where the earth is in any place sulphureous in the saturnine property, wherein the sun bears chief rule, there is such a boiling; the outward sun hungers after the inward, which dwells in its own principle in the centre in sulphur, and sets its desire upon time; for the time, viz. the creature, longs after eternity, viz. after the liberty, to be freed from vanity; as the Scripture says, that "all creatures do earnestly long with us to be freed from vanity." 30. Even here the liberty gives itself into the solar property
33. Now as the boiling is in the earth, so also it is above the
34. Now in this same oil is the hunger or love-desire after the essence of time, viz. after the manifestation of the Deity; this desire reaches in the essence of time after its property, viz. after the sun, and the sun's property reaches after the oil in the centre of the fruit, and fervently longs after it, and gives itself freely into the fruit, and sucks the virtue into itself, and gives it forth in its joy into the austere property of the fruit, and meekens and sweetens all with the love, which it receives in the centre in the oil of the liberty: Thus a fruit, which at first is sour and sharp, becomes very pleasant and sweet, that a man may eat it; and even thus is the ripening of all fruits. 35. Now by the signature in the external you may see the inward form; for the forms in the salt, viz. in the power, shew themselves externally. 36. There are commonly four colours, as white, yellow, red, and green: Now according to what colour the fruit (as an apple) is most signed, accordingly is the taste also in the salt; as white with a clear thin skin somewhat inclining to dark gives sweetness, which is of Venus property; if the sweet taste be strong and powerful, then Jupiter is potent therein; but if it be weak and fulsom, then the moon is strong therein; but if it be hard, and of a brownish colour, then Mars is strong therein; but if the white colour be of a grayish-brown, then Saturn is strong therein: Venus makes 2 a white colour, Mars red, and bitter in the taste; Mars makes Venus's colour light, Mercury gives a mixt colour,
39. But if the form of life, wherein 2 Mercury is inflamed in the loathing 3 in the anguish and poison-source, may obtain
40. As for example; A jovial man receives a nauseate [or loathing] from the lunar property; now if the physician knew that he had so gotten his nauseate, and prepared him a jovial cure according to the hunger of his own spirit or mercury, this now would be right; but if the moon's property be strong in the salt which he would administer for the nauseate, then he gives him a nauseate; but if the jovial cure be free from the moon, then the jovial Mercury receives its own food with great desire, and quits the nauseate: And thus it is likewise with diseases which arise in the salniter, viz. from fear or frightening; thereto belongs also such a flagrat as the first was, and then there is a present cure, or such an herb, wherein the salniter lies in such a property as it lies in that man. 41. I know, and it is shewn me, that the sophister will cavil at me, because I write, that the divine power is in the fruit, that God's power does appropriate 2 itself into the generation of nature: But hear, my dear friend, become seeing, I ask thee, How was paradise in this world? Was it also manifest in nature? Was it also in the fruit? Was it in the world, or without the world? Did paradise stand in God's power, or in the elements? Was the power of God manifest in the world, or hidden? Or what is the curse of the earth, and the putting of Adam and Eve out of paradise? Then tell me, Does not God dwell also in time? Is not God all in all? It is written, "Am not I he who filleth all things?" Also, "Thine is the kingdom, the power, and glory, from eternity to eternity." 42. Here consider thyself, and leave me uncensured: I do not say, that the nature is God, much less the fruit proceeding from the earth; but I say, God gives power to every life, be it good or bad, to each thing according to its desire, for he himself is All; and yet he is not called God according to every being, but according to the light wherewith he dwells in himself and shines with his power through all his beings; He gives in his power to all his beings and works, and each thing receives his power
45. Thus also it is with man; he was created a fair blossom and fruit of paradise, but the devil raised up in him his thorny property by the serpent, understand the centre, the property of the wrathful nature, which in his paradisical source was not manifest in him; but when his hunger entered into the thorny false property of the serpent, viz. into death, then the property of death, and the false serpent in the devil's desire, pressed into his hunger, and filled soul and body, so that the hunger of the false serpent began effectually to work in him, and death awaked in him, and then paradise hid itself in him: For paradise entered into itself, and the poison of the serpent in death's property dwelt also in itself; here was now the enmity; then said God to him, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head, and thou shalt sting the heel with death's poison." 46. Understand the paradisical image which is shut up, and
47. Thus likewise it is with man; he lies now shut up after his fall in a gross, deformed, bestial dead image; he is not like an angel, much less like unto paradise; he is as the gross ore in Saturn, wherein the gold is couched and shut up; his paradisical image is in him as if it were not, and it is also not manifest, the outward body is a stinking carcass, while it yet lives in the poison: He is a bad thorny bush, from whence notwithstanding fair rose-buds may bloom forth, and grow out of the thorns, and manifest that which lies hidden, and shut up in the wrathful poisonful Mercury, till the artist who has made him takes him in hand, and brings the living Mercury into his gold or paradisical image disappeared and shut up in death; so that the inclosed image, which was created out of the divine meekness and love-essentiality, may again bud and spring forth in the divine Mercury, viz. in the word of the Deity, which entered into the humanity shut up [and closed in the death and curse]. 48. And then the divine mercury changes the wrathful Mercury into its property, and Christ is born, who bruises the head of the serpent, viz. of the poison and death in the anger of God, understand the might of wrathful death; and a new man arises in holiness and righteousness, which lives before God, [and his divine image] appears and puts forth its lustre as the hidden gold out of the earthly property: And hereby it is clearly signified to the artist chosen of God how he shall seek; no otherwise than as he has sought and found himself in the property of the pure gold; and so likewise is this process, and not a whit otherwise; for man and the earth with its secrets lie shut up in the like [or same] curse and death, and need one and the same restitution. 49. But we tell the seeker, and sincerely and faithfully warn him as he loves his temporal and eternal welfare, that he do not first set upon this way to try the earth, and restore that which
50. I know and see, that the mocker in the devil's vizard will yet bring my writing into a misapprehension, and make me more dark and doubtful, because I write of the inward and outward Mercury, and understand by the inward the word of God, or the divine voice, viz. the manifestation of the eternity of the abyss; and by the outward [mercury] I understand the officer in nature, viz. the instrument, which the inward, living, powerful word, or divine voice uses, wherewith it forms 2 and works. Now the sophister will falsely interpret it, and say, that I mix them both together, making no difference, and hold 3 nature for God, as Babel has already done to me: But I bid him view my words well, and learn to understand them right; for I speak sometimes from the heavenly Mercury, and see that only, and then presently I name the instrument of the heavenly, therefore let him have regard to the sense: I write not heathenishly, but theosophically, from a higher ground than the outward faber 4 is, and then also from the same.
76:1 Dumb, senseless, mute. 76:2 Governor. 76:3 Lie. 76:4 Corpus. 77:1 Or body. 79:1 Or if his poison-will be brought into the moving spirit of love. 79:2 Gross stone. 79:3 Wrestling. 79:4 Or seething. 79:5 The Mercury. 79:6 Or such a physician has true skill to cure. 79:7 Or seizes on. 81:1 Shoot, or twig. 81:2 Or in their wrestling combat. 81:3 Or growth. 82:1 Bag, or sack. 82:2 Type, or resemblance. 83:1 Virtue, or efficacy. 84:1 Or mind. 85:1 Or womb. 85:2 Gives, or yields. 86:1 Or life's. 86:2 Or whereby. 86:3 Or nausea. 87:1 Or loathing. 87:2 Unite, or give in. 88:1 Or so it is signed, or marked. 89:1 Or puts itself forth. Text, glances forth. 90:1 Or has the new-birth in perfect knowledge. 90:2 Or makes. 90:3 Or take. 90:4 Archeus, or separator.
Footnotes
