Basil Valentine: Last Will & Testament (1671)

The Preface.

further knowledge, differing from others of my writings, wherein I have not written so obscurely, nor made use of such subtleties as the ancients did—who lived before me and ended their days happily—it requires a different place to be stored, and kept secret from the perverseness of men in this world. I do not desire it to be buried with me to become a prey and food for worms; rather, it shall be left above ground, kept secret from wicked men. My purpose is that it be laid in a secret place where none shall approach it but he for whom God has ordained it; my other writings shall sooner see the public light.

But know, whoever you are into whose hand this my last Testament comes, which contains the Revelation of heavenly and earthly mysteries, that it will come to you by divine providence—to whose custody, as my devotion then performed, I committed it, depositing it in that secret place together with other things. I was not forced by any necessity or hardship to leave it there, only for him whom God’s goodness shall appoint to find it. For it is not good for me to let God’s creatures and mysteries—which are already too abstruse and kept from the light into darkness by reason of the malicious perverseness of this wicked world—die with me, as envious men are wont to do with gifts they are entrusted with. Instead, I leave a glimpse of truth and the clear heaven, thinking it fitting to discharge my conscience by "putting out my talent to usury" An allusion to the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:27), meaning to invest or make productive use of his knowledge.. Let the will of the Lord be done in him whom He deems worthy of it, into whose care and diligence I commit it from henceforth and forever. For I, a cloister-man and unworthy servant of the Divine infinite Trinity, confess and acknowledge that I should never have come so far in