44. The physician must not give Saturn without Mars in hot diseases, not cold without heat, else he enkindles Mars in the wrath, and stirs up Mercury in the hard impression in the property of death; Mars belongs to the cure of every Mars-like sickness, which is of heat, and pricking pangs: But let the physician know, that he must first correct and qualify Mars, which he intends to administer, with Jupiter and Venus, that the wrath of Mars may be changed into joy, and then he will also change the sickness in the body into joy; cold is quite contrary to it.
45. If the physician administers Saturn only and by itself to a martial disease or hurt, then Mars is dismayed with death, and falls down with his force and strength into death's property; and now seeing he is the fire in the body, the life's fire becomes thereupon deadly in the elemental property; for he soon awakens Mercury in the property of cold: But yet the physician must have a care that he administers not in an hot disease the raw undigested hot Mars, in which Mercury is wholly inflamed and burning; for he enkindles the fire more vehemently in the body; he must first mollify Mars and Mercury, and put them into joy, and then it is right and good.
46. The hotter an herb is, the better it is hereunto; yet its wrathful fire must be changed into love, and then he can also change the wrath in the body into joy; all according as the property of the disease is, that the disease be able to bear it; for to a weak fire in the body, which is tired and languished by reason of the heat, and rather inclines to cold, viz. to the poison of Mercury, where the life is in danger, there belongs a cure with a fine subtle heat, wherein Venus is strong, and Mars very tender and mild by reason of the power of Venus; Jupiter need not be strong there, lest he make Mars and Mercury too strong, so that the weak life, before it is quickened and refreshed, is overwhelmed, and brought into the mercurial poison.
47. An herb in this aforesaid property grows not high, it is somewhat rough in the touch; the rougher it is, the stronger is Mars therein; it is better to be used outwardly to wounds and sores, than inwardly: The fine and subtle part is to be taken into the body, and is expulsive; the more subtle it is, the nigher it is to the life in the body, which the physician may very well know by its salt; for no rough wild property is to be taken into the body, unless the body be inflamed with a sudden poison, where the life also is fresh and strong, then a vehement resistance must be used; yet Mercury and Mars must not be administered in the wrath, but in their strongest power, Mars in the greatest heat, but before changed into joy; and then he also changes Mercury according to himself: Jupiter belongs to the transmutation of wrathful Mars, but he must be first introduced into Sol's property, and then he is rightly fit for it.
48. Every living creature, according to its kind in the foregoing property, is friendly and pleasant, if you deal friendly and gently with it; but if it be dealt roughly with, then Mercury is stirred up in the poison-property, for Mars soon boils up, and gets aloft in the bitter property, and then the anger springs forth; for the ground of all malignity lies therein; but if it be not stirred up, then it is not manifest; as a great sickness which lies in the body, but while the same is hid, and not enkindled, it is not manifest and apparent.
49. But if Mercury be next Saturn in the property, and next him the moon, and Venus and Jupiter beneath, and also weak, then let Mars stand where he will, yet all is earthly; for Mercury is held in the austere impression in the cold property, viz. in death's form, and his Sulphur is earthly; if Mars comes near to it, then it is poisonful also, but if Venus makes an opposition therein, then the poison is resisted, yet it is but earthly; it gives a greenish colour from the power of Venus.
50. But if Venus be next Saturn in the property, and the moon not opposed by Mars, and Jupiter likewise goes in his own power, then all is pleasant [and lovely under that property or constellation]; the herbs are slender, single, and soft in touch, of white blossoms, unless Mercury brings in a mixt colour from the power of the sun, viz. from Mars half red, and from Jupiter bluish, and it is weak in the property, and of little use in physic, yet not hurtful: In the creature it gives a pleasant, courteous, humble life, with no deep reason [reach or capacity], but if Mars comes thereunto, the creature is small, or thin, of a white, weak, and effeminate nature.
5i. There are three special salts which may be used to cure, which belong to the vegetable life, viz. Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury; these are the working life, in which the sun is the right spirit which makes these salts operative.
52. The salt or power of Jupiter is of a pleasant good smell and taste from the inward original [of the property] of the liberty of the divine essence, and from the external [principle or original] of the property of the sun and Venus, but yet it is not alone of itself of sufficient power in nature; for the outward nature consists in fire and anguish, viz. in poison, and Jupiter's power is opposed to the fiery poison life, which makes a temperature in the poisonful nature, viz. a desire of meekness out of the enmity.
53. `the salt of Mars is fiery, bitter, and austere, and the mercurial salt is anxious and raging, like a poison, inclined both to heat and cold; for it is the life in Sulphur, and unites [or assimilates] itself, according to each thing's property; for if it comes into Jupiter's salt, it causes joy and great power; but if it comes into Mars's salt, it makes bitter pangs, stitches, achings, and woe; but if it comes into Saturn's earthly salt, it makes swellings, anguish, and death, if it be not hindered by Jupiter and Venus: Venus and Jupiter are opposite to Mars and Mercury, that so they might temper them both; and without the power of Mars and Mercury there would be no life in Jupiter, Venus, and Sol, but only a stillness; "therefore the worst is as profitable as the best," and the one is the cause of the other.
54. But the physician is to heed and mind what he takes in hand, lest he inflame the mercurial poison more and more in his patient, or introduce it into another adverse source: He ought indeed to use the martial and mercurial salt for his cure, but he must first reconcile Mars and Mercury with Venus and Jupiter, that so both these angry adversaries may resign their will into Jupiter's will, so that Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury may all three obtain one will in the power, and then the cure is right, and the sun of life will again enkindle itself in this union and agreement, and also temper the nauseate of the disease in the contrariety in the salt of the disease, and turn Mercury's poison, and the bitter fire of Mars into a pleasant Jupiter.
55. This is now to be understood only concerning the vegetable soul, viz. concerning the outward man, which lives in the four elements, and concerning the sensible and feeling property.
56. Reason likewise is to be cured with its likeness; for as reason may be brought by words into a sensible sickness and disease, so that reason may vex, fret, and torment itself, and at last fall into an heavy sad sickness and death; so also it may be cured with the application of the same thing [with its own assimilate].
57. As for example: An honest man falls into great debts, care, trouble and distress, which does even afflict him nigh to death; but if a good friend comes and pays his debt for him, then is the cure soon effected with its likeness: Even thus it is in all things; from whence the disease is risen, even such a like cure is requisite for the restoring its health; and thus it is likewise in the mental soul.
58. The soul of the poor sinner is poisoned in the anger of God, and the Mercury (understand the eternal Mercury in the eternal nature) is inflamed in the soul's property in the fiery Mars of God's anger, which does now burn in the eternal Saturn, viz. in the horrible impression of darkness, and feels the sting of the poisonful angry Mars; his Venus is imprisoned in the house of misery, his water is dried up, his Jupiter of understanding is brought into the greatest folly, his sun is quenched, and his moon turned to dark night.
59. Now he cannot be cured and remedied any other way, but with the likeness; he must again appease the mental Mercury; he must take Venus, understand the love of God, and introduce it into his poisonful Mercury and Mars, and tincture the Mercury in the soul again with love, and then his sun will again shine in the soul, and his Jupiter will rejoice.
60. Now if thou sayest that thou canst not, and that thou art too strongly captivated; I say also, that I cannot; for it lies not in my willing, running, and toiling, but it lies in the compassion of God; for I cannot by my own strength and ability overcome the wrathful anger of God which is enkindled in me; but seeing his dear heart has freely given itself again out of love, and in love, into the humanity, viz. into the poisonful enkindled Mercury in the soul, and tinctured the soul, viz. the poison-source of the eternal nature in the eternal Father's nature's property; therefore I will cast my will into his tincture, and I will go with my will out of the enkindled poison-source, out of the evil Mercury in God's anger into his death, and with my corrupted will I will die with him in his death, and become a nothing in him, and then he must be my life.
61. For if my will is a nothing, then he is in me what he pleases, and then I know not myself any more, but him; and if he will that I shall be something, then let him effect it; but if he wills it not, then I am dead in him, and he lives in me as he pleases, and so then if I be a nothing, then I am at the end, in the essence out of which my father Adam was created; for out of nothing God has created all things.
62. The nothing is the highest good, for there is no turba therein, and so nothing can touch [or annoy] my soul; for I am a nothing to myself, but I am God's, who knows what I am; I know it not, neither shall [or ought] I to know it.
63. And thus is the cure of my soul's sickness; he that will adventure it with me shall find by experience what God will make of him: As for example; I here write, and I also do not do it; for I, as I, know nothing, and have also not learned or studied it; so then I do it not, but God does it in me as he pleases.
64. I am not known to myself, but I know to him what and how he pleases: Thus I live not to myself, but to him; and thus we are in Christ only one, as a tree in many boughs and branches, and he begets and brings forth the fruit in every branch as he pleases, and thus I have brought his life into mine, so that I am atoned with him in his love; for his will in Christ is entered into the humanity in me, and now my will in me enters into his humanity; and thus his living Mercury, that is, his word, viz. the speaking Mercury, tinctures my wrathful evil Mercury, and transforms it into his. And thus my Mars is become a love-fire of God, and his Mercury speaks through mine, as through his instrument, what he pleases; and thus my Jupiter lives in the divine joy, and I know it not; the true sun shines to me, and I see it not; for I live not to myself, I see not to myself, and I know not to myself: I am a thing, and I know not what; for God knows what I am; and so now I tend and run to and fro as a thing, in which the spirit drives [or actuates] me as he pleases; and thus I live according to my inward will, which yet is not mine.
65. But yet I find in me another life, which I am, not according to the resignation [or self-denial], but according to the creature of this world, viz. according to the similitude of eternity; this life does yet stand in poison and strife, and shall yet be turned to nothing, and then I am wholly perfect: Now in this same life, wherein yet I find my selfhood, is sin and death, and these likewise shall be brought to nothing: In that life, which God is in me, I hate sin and death; and according to that life which yet is in my selfhood, I hate the nothing, viz. the Deity: Thus one life fights against the other, and there is a continual contest in me; but seeing Christ is born again in me, and lives in my nothingness, therefore Christ will, according to his promise made in paradise, bruise the head of the serpent, viz. of my selfhood, and mortify the evil man in myself, so that he himself may truly live [in me].
66. But what shall Christ do with the evil man? Shall he cast him away? No. For he is in heaven, and does thereby accomplish and effect his wonders in this world, which stands in the curse: Now each labours in its own [vineyard]; the outward man labours in the cursed world, which is evil and good in the wonders of God, viz. in the mirror of glory, which yet shall be revealed in him; and the inward man is not its own, but God's instrument, with whom God makes what he pleases, till the outward with its wonders in the mirror shall also be manifest in God; and even then is God all in all, and he alone in his wisdom and deeds of wonder and nothing else besides; and this is the beginning and the end, eternity and time.
67. Now understand it right; to the outward man there belongs a cure from the outward, viz. from the outward will of God, who has made himself external with this visible world; and for the inward man there is a cure from the inward world, in which God is all in all; only one, not many, one in all, and all in one: But if the inward penetrates the outward, and illustrates it with its sunshine, and the outward receives the sunshine of the inward, then it is tinctured, cured, and healed by the inward, and the inward illustrates it, as the sun shines through the water, or as the fire sets the iron quite through of a light glee; here now needs no other cure.
68. But seeing the devil in the wrath of the eternal nature opposes the soul, as an enemy of the soul, and continually casts his poisonful imagination at the soul to tempt and try it, and the anger or wrath of the eternal nature is manifest in the outward man, which Adam awakened and stirred up; thereupon this wrath is oftentimes stirred up by the devil and his servants, that it effectually works and burns in the outward body, and even then the inward love-fire goes out in the outward man, as a red-hot iron is quenched in the water; yet not so soon in the internal, but in the external [man], unless the outward man continues lying in the mire of sin; so that the soul, which had given itself into the nothing, viz. into the liberty, into the life of God, does enter again with its desire into the outward sinful man, then it loses the inward sun; for it goes again out of the nothing into the something, viz. into the source.
69. Thus the outward body must then have an outward cure; and though the inward man yet lives in God, yet whereas the soul has imagined into the outward wrath, so that the divine tincturation is no longer in the outward man, the outward Mercury, viz. the expressed word, must have a tincturation from the outward expressed love and light, unless the will-spirit of the soul does wholly re-enter into the inward hidden man, and be again transmuted; and then the cure may be again introduced into the outward man, being the thorough-shining love of God in the light, which is exceeding precious.
70. But now this herb is rarely to be found upon the earth; for men eat only of the forbidden tree; therefore the poison of the serpent does so spring up in them in the wrath of the eternal and external nature, so that they must also have an external cure for their serpent's poison in the outward Mercury.
71. It is indeed possible for a man to live without sickness, but he must bring the divine tincturation from the inward man through the outward, which is very difficult [to do] in the world; for the outward man lives among the thorns of God's wrath, which gall and sting him on every side, and blow up the wrath of God, so that it burns in the outward man, and then the tincturation of God's love may not continue there: It is indeed inhere, but not in the outward enkindled abominations, but it dwells in itself, like as the light dwells in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not, also knows nothing of it; but when the light is manifest in the darkness, then is the night changed into day.
72. Thus it is likewise with man; of what light man lives, of that also comes his cure; if he lives in the outward world, then the outward goodness and love, viz. the outward Jupiter and Venus with the sun must be his cure, or he remains in the angry Mars, and in the poisonful Mercury, in the earthly moon captivated in the impression of Saturn, viz. in the earthly Sulphur; which however is made manifest, and awakened in the outward man by Adam, for whose sake the outward man must die, putrify, and so enter again into the nothing, viz. into the end, or as I might better say and signify it, into the beginning of the creation, into the essence, out of which it went and departed with Adam.