Elements thou must therefore work by a continual boiling in which thy Compound will appear like unto the stormy Sea in a Tempest raging and swelling waves and bubbles rising one in the neck of another incessantly The Vapour of this Bath being imprisoned condenseth and returns every moment until there be an union made of all the Elements in a terra Adamica or Limus Then will the Body Soul and Spirit remain below in the bottom of the Vessel which is as a Tomb in which they dye and rot and are putrified For the Scripture recordeth when the Earth shall be Troubled and into the deep Sea shall be cast Mountains and Bodies likewise at the last THen will our Earth be moved and the powers of our Heaven will be shaken and the windows thereof opened and an universal Deluge will come upon the face of the whole Earth which will destroy all things and cover the highest Mountains so that all Flesh shall dye these Waters will be a long time upon the face of the ground Our Bodies be likned conveniently To Mountains which after high Planets we name Into the deeps therefore of Mercury Turn them and keep thee out of blame For then shalt thou see a noble game How all will become Powder as soft as Silk So doth our Runnit kindly curd up our Milk THus have many of the envious allegorized of the Scripture and veiled their Work under several passages and overtures which are mentioned therein to which they have some resemblance they have called their Metals Sol and Luna Mountains either for the situation sake they being generally found in Mountains or by opposition sake for as Mountains are highest above ground so they lye deepest under ground or for that as the Mountains are nearer the Sun so those do approximate nearer to coelestial Influences than any other Bodies whatsoever so also they have stiled them by the names of Planets by reason of some similitude But it makes not so much for the name the thing is take the Body which is Gold and throw it into Mercury such a Mercury which is bottomless that is whose centre it can never find but by discovering its own govern them wisely with Fire as thy Matter requireth then shall thy Gold visibly liquefie in the Fire that is appear thin as if it were Mercury and it will swell bubble and boil so long till the moisture be terminated by the Body into an impalpable Powder as naturally as Runnit doth curdle Milk into Cheese This total reduction into Atoms is the perfection of Putrefaction in blackness most black and it begins before the 50 th day and endeth before or about the 90 th day in variable colours Then have thy Bodies their first form lost And others been indued immediately Then hast thou well bestowed thy cost When others uncunning must go by Not knowing the secrets of our Philosophy THen thou hast a Body not such a one as thou puttest in but Hermaphroditical which yet hath but one form Nor is it the same form it had though an accidental imperfect one in the same kind which imperfect form is not to be despised for these Ashes are the Tomb of our King Honour then the Sepulchre of him and of his Queen if ever thou expect to see them returning from the East in power and great glory Never grutch it then that thou hast destroyed thy Gold for he that thus destroys it loseth it not but soweth good Seed in good Earth from whence he shall receive it with an hundred-fold increase when as he that saveth his Gold in this Work loseth his labour and is deceived for lack of true understanding when as he undertakes this Work without the true knowledge of its causes Yet one point more I must tell thee How that each Body hath dimensions three Altitude Latitude and also Profundity By which all Gates turn we must our Wheel HAving then this Mystery which is the Stumbling-block at which thousands stumble who cannot for all their talk destroy their Bodies which is not to be done but by the Alkahest which is an unprofitable way for our Work and by our Mercury viz. in 40 days or thereabouts Then know which must be your next progress for Calcination is but a term put on our Work by Authors and it reacheth to the end of Putrefaction our first Calcination I told you before that all our Work was compleat in three Circulations and every Circulation had three periods so now I tell you that these three periods are Altitude Latitude and Profundity Altitude and Profundity being united make Latitude and so our Wheel is turned round the Profundity is the Water below the Altitude is Vapour or Waters above and the union of these two is in a Calx which is Latitude which is done by Liquefaction Sublimation and Calcination Liquefaction dissolves and confounds Sublimation volatizeth separates and washeth and Calcination unites and fixeth Knowing that thine entrance in the West shall be Thy passage forth to the North if thou do well And there thy Lights will lose their lights each deal For there must thou abide for 90 nights In darkness of Purgatory without lights THou must begin in the West and in the Autumn which is Barren for then Crops are gathered take then thou Gold which is the Harvest of Natures works and it is barren of it self to make it fruitful thou must bring on the Winter showrs which is the North Latitude and by these the Earth will be made mellow and the Seeds will rot which Seeds are Sol terrestrial in whose belly is a hidden Luna These Lights will in this Operation be darkned and by little and little a horrible Night will over-shadow the Earth and Heaven a blackness like unto Pitch this blackness and Eclipsation will continue until the end of thy first three months perhaps 100 days perhaps 120 yea sometimes 130 days as it may fall out think not this time long for it must be that thy Matters must be purified before they can or shall be glorified Then take thy course up to the East anon By colours rising variable in manifold wise To the East therefore thine ascending devise For there the Sun with day-light doth uprise In Summer and there disport thee with delight THen shalt thou see thy Exhalations to return again and by the continuance of them on thy Body light shall begin to appear which is our Spring and East season in which as the rising Sun scatters the darkness with multitude of previous colours especially in a misty morning so is it with our Work such admirable colours will appear as never were seen by the eye of man in so little a room before Then rejoyce for now our King hath triumphed over the miseries of death and behold him returning in the East with the Clouds in power and great glory Now the Night is overgone and the Morning breaks the Winter is past and the Spring comes on pleasantly with sweet showrs of April
Art we have written that which never heretofore was by any revealed NOw for a close of this most secret Gate Whereat few enter none but they who are By Gods grace favour'd it s not luck ne sate That in disclosing this can claim a share It is a portion which is very rare Bestow'd on those whom the most High shall chuse To such the Truth I freely shall declare Nor ought through Envy to them shall refuse Nor with unwonted Riddles shall their hopes abuse Of uncouth subjects now shall be my Song My mind intends high Wonders to reveal Which have lain hidden heretofore full long Each Artist striving them how to conceal Lest wretched Caitiffs should these Treasures steal Nor Villains should their Villanies maintain By this rare Art which danger they to heal In horrid Metaphors veil'd an Art most plain Lest each Fool knowing it should it when known disdain Remember Man how he produced was How formed from a lump of abject Clay From whence Created he each thing doth pass Which next to Angels ever saw the day For God in him infus'd so bright a Ray Of his own Image which the Body joyn'd To it ennobled so that both pourtray Their Maker as though Heaven with Earth combin'd A little System of the Vniverse to find But yet though he of Soul and Body both Was made and of the two the nobler part The Soul by far which for the most part doth The subject nominate yet that same Art That made so rare a piece doth from the part Less noble name the whole Adam or Dust Wherein a Mystery was couch'd whose heart Of life the Centre to Earth's bowels must Return the Earth it self for Man's sake being curs'd Right so our Stone containeth Natures two One hidden subtle Soul Heavens Progeny The other gross compact terrene also Earth's product must to Earth by destiny Which when resolv'd is made a feculency To sight but the Coelestial part is still Though over-clouded most pure inwardly And shall at last most Pearlie drops distill Which shall the barren Earth with fruit in plenty fill Thus all our Secrets from the Earth do flow 'T is Earth which for our Base at first we take Our Water also unto Earth must go And both together must a Limus make Which we with respite by our Art must bake Till all become a Spirit glorify'd Whose firmness wasting time shall never shake By perfect union th' are so surely ty'd Each Element the other three within it self doth hide Take then that thing which Gold we please to call But 't is not Gold yet Gold it is in truth Metalline 't is yet from a Mineral It flows which Art by Nature holp renew'th And to a Fool an ugly face it sheweth Yet to a Son of Art it lovely seems 'T is Stellar white and tender in his youth And vile appears in many mens esteems Yea the most part of men it for a trifle deems From it is made a subject of great price Shew it the Goldsmith and he 'l swear 't is Gold But look you sell it not if you be wise The Basis 't is of Secrets manifold This for their secret main the Sages hold The like is in Gold digged from the Mine But to procure it is scarce to be told That you may understand though every line Were plainly wrote yet might your practice oft decline For 't is a Labour hardly to be borne So many tricks and turnings in it be And he that tryeth it is surely forlorne Vnless a crafty Master credit me For I have tryed both yet could not see How any in this way can be secure I therefore who have vowed secrecy Have writ this way which we can scarce endure For knowledge-sake to try its ease will none allure Our Kingly road I also hinted have Our way in which a Fool can hardly erre Our secret way which much sad toyl will save Which is so easie that I may averr If thou shouldst see it thou wouldst it preferr To any Earthly pleasure yet beware That you mistake not for I do averr A mingled Doctrine these lines do declare For both ways in this Book of mine do claim a share Learn to distinguish every sentence well And know to what Work it doth appertain This is great skill which few as I can tell By all their reading yet could ere attain And yet of Theory this is the main Also to know accordingly to give Due heat which in one way thou must be fain T' increase ten-fold thou mayst me well believe For what doth one decoct t'other away will drive Also their Operations different Appear the one thou must sublime and boyl O tedious way in which much time is spent And many errours which the Work will spoyl The other silently doth make no toyl Like the still voice which to Eliah came About which Work thou needest not to broyl Nor wantst thou â—iery Vulcan's parching flame A far more gentle heat begins and ends this Game But if thou canst each Work perform apart And knowst them afterward to reconcile Then art thou Master of a Princely Art The very success will thy hopes beguile Thou hast all Natures Works rankt on a File And all her Treasures at command dost keep On thee the Fates shall never dare but smile No Mystery is now for thee too deep Th' art Natures Darling whether thou dost wake or sleep Pardon my plainness if the Art thou knowst 'T was the fruit of my untame desire To profit many and without a boast No man above my â—andour shall aspire My zeal was kindled with Minerva's Fire And thou who to this Art wilt now apply My â—ook in Natures way shall lead thee higher Then ever thou alone mayst hope to fly If only thou shalt favour'd be by Destiny Peruse these lines and being read review And read again and on them meditate Each reading shall fresh Mysteries and new Discover which are scatter'd in each Gate For they so linked are that all relate To each and we our words have woven so That thou mayst soon erre by misleading â—ate Vnless for to distinguish thou do know Remember that 'mongst Briars thick sweet Roses grow AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Sixth Gate Which is CONGELATION The Sixth Gate Opened Which is CONGELATION Congelation c. It is of soft things in duration of colour white c. How to congeal he needeth not much to care for Elements But Congelations be made in divers wise of Spirits c. Of Salts dissolved c. and then congeal'd And some dissolveth congealing manually c. But such congealing is not c. HAving largely run through the first five Gates in which is all the difficulty pre-supposing now that you have passed the shades of the Night and are now come to the approaching of the Day whose dawning is to be seen soon after the darkness of the Night and is discovered by variety of gay Clouds which run before the Sun in its up-rising The first remarkable
think that God bestows upon any of us what we enjoy for our own Merits but of his free Grace yet withal let me exhort any one who shall set his Studies this way to address himself to the Author and Fountain of Goodness for his help that he may have grace to honour God in the use of so great a Talent For I perswade my self that whomever God shall appoint to be Heir of such a Talent that he will give him a heart to improve it aright or else he will add to his Judgment for the abuse of so great a Blessing For whoever shall be wanton and dissolute and live without the fear of God what may he not do with such an Art unless God restrain him as certainly he will hiding this Secret from him or making it to him a snare and trap to betray his Life into the hands of covetous men of the World as many have found it by sad experience Therefore the Lord give both me and thee that grace that he may be continually before our Eyes The Alpha and Omega of our Thoughts Words and Actions Even so Amâ—n In the Beginning when thou madest all of nought a globous matter and dark under confusion by him the beginning c. FIrst then cast thine Eyes upon the Works of God and behold that work of his hands Consider how the glorious work of Creation was begun by him even by Christ for whose sake this very Science is communicated unto the Sons of Men as Bernardus Trevisan witnesseth who in his Epistle to Thomas of Bononia saith of this work That it is done Christi Gratia for Christs sake Consider how out of one Mass the Lord God by his powerful Command made all things to appear that are in Heaven or in Earth the heavenly Bodies with their Influences above and the earthly Matter below which by the Rotation of the Heavens produce all sublunary products through the word of his Mouth Above all which and in all which God is he is the Maker and the Lord of all above all blessed for ever who hath purchased to himself a People and redeemed them and they shall reign with him for ever and ever For as of one Mass was made all things right so in our practice must it be APply all this to the work of this Mastery Analogically and Allegorically for as the Lord made all the works which we see so he did lay them all under his powerful word of Command by which they continue to be what they are and are carried with an uniform motion to that first Pattern or Draught of things All our Secrets of one Image must spring AS then out of one mixed confused Mass all things had an actual existence according to their several kinds so out of one Image all these Secrets must flow Truth doth not consist in Heterogeneity but in Unity for God is one and his works uniform and the more Noble any thing is the nearer to Simplicity As in Philosophers Books whoso list to see TO this the Sentences of the Philosophers concur as many as have truly understood the Secret as Morien often and plentifully witnesseth Geber Trevisan and many others The thing is but one in kind though two in number and though more things are used yet till they be all brought to an oneness of Nature they are not fit to enter into this work Our Stone is called the Lesser World ANd therefore our Stone is resembled to Man who although he have a Wife different from him in Sex yet one with him in kind in which sence it is called the Microcosm or Less World for indeed next to Man who is the Image of God it is the true little System of the Great World I shall not particularize here how for in its place it will fall in seasonably One and Three THis Stone is also called Trine or Trinity in Vnity from the Homogeneity of the Matter as Trevisan saith Our Stone is made of one Root that is of two Mercurial Substances c. This Trinity is discerned in the Components for first there is the Body which is Sol and the Water of Mercury in which besides its Mercuriality there is a spiritual seed of Sulphur which is the secret Fire This is the Trinity these are called the Body the Soul and the Spirit the Body is the dead Earth which increaseth not without the celestial Vertue the Spirit is the Soul of our Air or Chameleon which is also of a two-fold composure yet made one inseparably the Soul is the Bond of Mercury without which our Fire never appears nor can appear for it is naked it inhabits the Fiery-Dragon and it yields his Soul to the true Saturnia and is embraced by it and both become one together bearing the stamp of the most High even the Oriental Lucifer the Son of the Morning This Soul is Chalyb's Magical Volatile and very tender the true Minera of Sol out of which Sol naturally proceeds which I my self know to be true and have spoken of it in my little Latin Treatise called Introitus apertus ad occlusum Regis palatium This is true Sulphur which is imbibed by the Mercuriality of Saturnia and notes it with the Regal Signet and being united and revived into a Mineral Water by the Mediation of Diana's Doves it is the sharp Spirit which in the Water moves the Body to putrefie Thus is the Trinity proportionable to wit three Natures in the first Mixture the Work is carried an end to perfect Complement distinctly according to the Vertue of a Body Soul and Spirit for the Body would be never penetrative were it not for the Spirit nor would the Spirit be permanent in its super-perfect Tincture were it not for the Body nor could these two act one upon another without the Soul for the Spirit is an invisible thing nor doth it ever appear without another Garment which Garment is the Soul In this it exerciseth its vertue this Soul as it is drawn from the Saturnia solid and dry is named our Air or rather the Chameleon which is an airy Body changing its hue according to every Object it beholds so our Air is of an astonishing Nature out of which I know all Metals may be drawn yea even Sol and Luna without the Transmuting Elixir of which in my little Latine Treatise which was the Congest of mine own experience I spake fully This Air being dissolved into Water Mineral hath in it two of our Trinity united so really that in a short digestion the spiritual inhabiting invisible Sulphur will without addition congeal the Mercury in which it is and make a visible congelated substance of Luna and then Sol. Thus this Trinity is indeed Vnity one being Gold mature fixt and digested in act the other Gold volatile white and crude yet in posse to be made most fixt and solid by naked digestion It is not then a delusion that Philosophers speak and write for trust me Viderunt nudam sine
pure parts are separated now totally from the uncleanness of the dead it is our Stone though it be as yet volatile yet it hath all in it essential to our Stone and therefore though it fly and sublime for the space of seven times yet his Nurse is the Earth and therefore to it as to its Nest it returns and in seven sublimations what was before all Heaven will now become all Earth And this is the period of all the Rotations and Natures consummation This Stone also tell thee I dare Is the vapour of Metals potential ANd now if any should demand of us what our Stone is we shall answer him that it is Gold digested to its height of purity and perfection through the co-operation of Art and Nature but the means to get this is to learn to turn thy Body into a vapour that is into Mercury which then ascends in form of a vapour How thou shalt get it thou must beware For Invisible truly is this Menstrual Howbeit with the second Water Philosophical By separation of Elements it may appear To sight in form of Water clear BUt the means to attain this is not a light work it requires a profound meditation for this is the Seed of Gold which as the Poet sang reclusa resedit longius it is involved in many links and held Prisoner as it were in a deep Dungeon so that as the noble Sandivow hath it it is the work of a very wise Philosopher to let loose Sulphur he that knows not our two first Menstruals is altogether shut out from attaining to the sight of this third and last Menstrue yet he who knows how to prepare the first Water and to joyn it to the Body in a just pondus to shut it up in its Vessel Philosophically until the Infant be formed and what is the greatest of all to govern his Fire dexterously so as to cherish Internal heat with External and can wait with patience till he see his signs he shall see the first Water will work on the Body till it hath opened the pores and extracted partly the Tincture of Sol which as it comes out gradually so it contests with the first Fire against Nature so long till they be reconciled in an imperfect medium in which they like to weary wounded Combatants lye gasping and panting for breath and at length dye and then appears the second Water of the wise which doth ascend and descend so long til lit revive the dead Carkass and then a Soul comes into it and it vegetates and circulates and changeth colours so long till Blackness vanishing there be made a perfect union and universal temperament of Elemental qualities never more to contend together then the whole Compound for a time appears like to a new glorious Water glittering like Oriental Pearls and Fish-eyes Of this Menstrue by labour exuberate With it may be made Sulphur of Nature THis is it which Raymund calls his Mercury exuberate as much as to say Mercury with Child Artephius calleth it the Salt pregnant for it hath Sulphur actually hidden under the Mercurial quickness therefore it by digestion is easily turned into our Stone which is Sulphur or Fire of Nature If it be well and kindly acuate And circulate into a Spirit pure Then to dissolve thou must be sure Thy base with it in divers wise As thou shalt know by thy practise That point c. THis Mercury thus renovate or new born may by the Philosopher be diversly handled for he may take his work from the Fire and circulate and cohobate this Mercury by a peculiar operation which is partly Mechanical till he have a most admirable pure subtile Spirit in which he may dissolve Pearls and all Gems and multiply them or his Red Stone before it be united with a Metal in projection for the making of Aurum Potabile And in this Mercury thus circulated is doubtless the Mystery of the never-fading Light which I have actually seen but yet not practically made In a word every one who hath this exuberate Mercury hath indeed at command the subject of wonders which he may imploy himself many ways in both admirably and pleasantly And certainly he that hath this needs no information from another himself now standing in the Centre he may easily view the Circumference and then operation will be next to the Spirit of God his best Guide Know then that if thou be a Son of Art when thou art once arrived hither thou art so far from being at the end of thy search unless thou make Gold to be thy final object and so thou shalt never come hither that thou art but now come into the Mystical School of the hidden wonders of God in which thou mayst every day see new Miracles if thou be studious and desirous of knowledge which all Adepti are they prize skill before any earthly thing and therefore refuse Honour and Pomp and retire only to the beholding of God and his Works in this admirable Looking-glass of the most hidden Mysteries of Nature For so together they may be circulate That is the base oyl and vegetable Menstrual So that it be by labour exuberate And made by craft a Stone celestial YEt doth not wisdom come naked but with her she brings riches and length of days for this exuberate Mercury is an Hermaphrodite and may without taking out of the Glass be circulated into a fifth Essence Now the union between the two Principles is the very true cause of this circulation for though in this last Menstruum there is an inseparable oneness yet the Components do give each their most noble quality to exalt the transcendency of our Medicine The extreme Components of this third Menstruum are the Sulphur and Mercuriality of the second as the first Menstrue and Sol our Body were the extremes of the second The base oyl our Sulphur is called for he is the unctuous Dragon or Earth which lyes at bottom without wings and is the Basis as it were of the Work The Mercury is called Vegetable for that it flyes and returns and makes the Earth to sprout and bud with tender branches These two the base oyl or Sulphur and the vegetable Menstrue at last make one intire indivisible substance which is of an Hermaphroditical quality the Man is the Woman and the Woman the Man the Sulphur the Mercury and the Mercury is the Sulphur in this respect the Earth flyeth as if it were Heaven and at length the Heaven will precipitate in the form of Earth and then is our work at an end there is the Harvest in the South when the glorified Soul is become a spiritual Body which is called our Stone of Paradise Of nature so Fiery that we it call Our Basilisk or our Cockatrice Our great Elixir most of price For as the sight of the Basilisk his object Killeth so slayeth it crude Mercury When thereupon he is project In twinkling of an eye most suddenly That Mercury then teyneth permanently All
in mean Minerals digg'd out of the Mine Yet must that Element be first purified and separate And with Elements of perfect Bodies be desponsate SO then if thou canst as by the Liquor Alcahest thou mayst reduce a Body be it what it will whether Eggs or Hair or Urine or a Spirit ardent or any mean Mineral which is not of a Metalline imposition to Water and after knowest how to impregnate that Water with a specificated seminal influential Light so that that Water may penetrate its dimensions at the least 16 times and become a Mineral Mercurial Juice thou mayst then expect as much profit from that Mercury as from the best Mercury that is sold in the Apothecaries shops and no more for thou mayst so purifie it and separate its faeces and crudities as that it may become fit to joyn with thy perfect Bodies but I doubt this way will be so hard try it when thou wilt I fear the first will puzzle thee all thy life long to turn all Bodies into Water and the next would puzzle all the Devils in Hell to bring this Water to a Metallick seminal viscosity that thou hadst better leave musing on these Impossibilities and take my counsel that is seek it there where Nature hath put it But first of thine Elements make thou Rotation And into Water thine Earth turn first of all Then of thy Water make Air by levigation And Air make Fire then Master I will thee call Of all our Secrets great and small The wheel of Elements then hast thou turn'd about Truly conceiving our Writings without doubt TAke of thy clean Mercury which is animated according to what I have faithfully taught in my little Latine Treatise and mix it with thy Body as there I told you without ambiguity put it in a Glass as I there advised and govern it with a Fire as I in that Treatise ordered and thou shalt see thy Elements circulate first thou shalt have thy Gold dissolved which thou shalt know by thy first sign which is a whiteness which will arise like a skin in boiling upon the Water This Water will be made aërial by subliming in a continual Vapour for by constant and continual Sublimation our Stone is inspired and takes life in the Air and lives and shews the actions of life and a living Water or Dew shall from the top of the Glass descend upon the lower grounds and make them fructifie then shall the Central Fire which was hidden in the Earth and is now in the Water come forth and ascend with the Water and in the form of Air and Vapour shall beautifie thy Vessel with changable colours Citrine pale blewish and blackish This is the Fire of Radical Sulphur which when it is once stirred up is like unto the Fiery Dragon and Ignis Infernalis by this thou mayst know that the Heaven and the Earth the Form and the Matter the Male and the Female are now beginning Conjunction when thou seest this sign rejoyce for know that now thy Bodies are made in greatest part no Bodies and this if thou dost work well will be in 30 or 36 days This done go backwards turning thy wheel again And into Water turn thy Fire anon Air into Earth else labourest thou in vain NOw know that all our three Circulations are so called not without great reason for so indeed they go on as a Wheel put a Nail in a Wheel and turn it and you shall see the Nail will with one half of your turning ascend and the other half descend And then that Circulation is compleat and you then must go on to another Circulation These our Circulations are Solution and Congelation Volatization and Fixation opening and shutting when once thou hast brought thy Body to the height of Subtiliation that the Spirit by decoction can bring it to then the Spirit hath done its work and ceaseth then to be active then begins the dissolved Body to work after its kind and then the Spirit is passive and the Body active thus passive Natures are made active and active passive which is the Key of our Mastery First then advance the Spirit above the Body till the Fire be discovered which is in a yellow colour then advance the Body over the Spirit till the Earth again appear which is in a colour blacker than Pitch which first will begin with blewness and this will decline daily more and more unto blackness This yellow colour remember that it comes with a moisture of the Compound otherwise what you do is all in vain turn it then into Water that is let this yellowness appear in humido till by opposition from the terrene qualities there be engendred a blewness then continue this decoction till all be intirely black for in gross moisture heat working engenders blackness with such like gross colours For so to temperament is brought our Stone And Natures contractions four are made one After they have three times been circulate Also thy Base perfectly consummate THy Air then must be thickned with the Body which is terrene and gross being not yet putrified and by this means the Fire and the Air and the Earth and Water will accord for Air will agree with Water and Earth with Fire The Air being then tempered with Earth doth by this reconcile the Water and the Fire Thus our first decoction confounds the Elements and thus our Stone which was of severed qualities is brought to a temperateness Thus by a natural Circulation the Quadrangle is made a Circle and four qualities make a fifth which is a Neuter from the four and yet partakes of all This first Conjunction natural which is made in the Glass without laying on of hands which we call Triptative is the ground of the last Tetraptive Conjunction which is made in the truning round of the three Wheels which doth perfect the Stone Thus under the moisture of the Moon GOvern then thy Bath first with a moist Fire until the Body be made no Body but a flying Spirit this is the time of the Womans reign and it is attributed to the Moon for our Gold till it be dissolved all the work depends only upon the active virtue of the Water which causeth the slow appearance of our signs And under the temperate heat of the Sun Thy Elements shall be incinerate soon And then hast thou the Mastery won Thank God thy Work was so begun For then hast thou one token true Which first in blackness to thee will shew WHen thou hast by thy first Waters Pontick virtue and firiness so far dissolved thy Body as to set at liberty its internal Sulphur then thy Operations will be speedy for the Sulphur of the Water together with the natural Sulphur of thy Gold by mixture will make an unnatural Fire which will then burn like to the Fire of Hell first making a total end of that dissolution which was but in part made by the Water and after that drying up and congealing its own
moisture and the moisture of the Water uniting the Sulphur of the Sun and the Sulphur of the Water and the Mercury of the Sun and the Mercury of the Water and the united Sulphur prevailing over the united Humidity rotting it into powder as small as Atoms black of the blackest black thou shalt then see a total mixture of Seeds and death of thy Compound This rotting will begin about the 42 46 or 50 th day and the signs of it are the Fumes will not ascend but the Matter will boil at the bottom of the Glass like to melted Pitch boiling and bubbling swelling and puffing in a black colour every day blacker and blacker shewing changable rotting colours in its boiling This will continue till it be so thick that it boil not but grow hard and swell yet it will vary often and appear sometimes as though dry and sometimes a little moisture will appear with fresh bubbling but no Fumes And this will last about 46 days no Fumes rising at all so that about the 84 th or 90 th day after thy Matters begin to be boiled in a continual decoction Putrefaction will be compleat and then Sublimation or Circulation will begin again which in 46 or 50 days will end in a white Dove This first token of blackness proclaims thee a Master after which thou canst not well miss unless thou wilt This is the astonishment of Art to make Gold volatile which was so fixed be patient then and boyl continually till your Gold begin to dissolve and come upon the Water like a Cream Then continue your decoction till the colour begin to change into an imperfect Citrine with moisture and send up yellowish vapours This Citrine will soon be mixed with a blewish black and yet continue the decoction till the Clouds begin to rise and a dark mist then continue your boyling till breath fail that is the Clouds and Fumes arise no more then the Compound boyl at the bottom without Fumes and will shew dark obscure reddish yellowish blewish gray and blackish colours then continue your decoction till the Body and whole Compound begin to rot into Atoms which the 50 th day will give you a Harbinger or fore-runner of with Pitchy blackness then know that all is thorowly mingled together and will never cease till the damned Earth come the Earth of Leaves which is a dust impalpable The Head of the Crow that token call we And some do call it the Crows Bill Some call it the Ashes of Hermes Tree And thus they name it after their will Our Toad of the Earth which eateth his fill Some call it by what it is mortificate Our Spirit with Venom intoxicate But it hath names I say to thee infinite For after each thing that blackness is to sight Named it is till time it waxeth white Then hath it names of more delight After all things that been full white And the red likewise after the same After all read things doth take the name At the first Gate c. THis token then is called the Crow the Crow's Head and the Crow's Bill for it is a shining blackness like unto Printers Ink or a solid Coal new broken or the most black and compacted broken Pitch Others name it the Ashes of Hermes Tree for it is Ashes out of which grows a Tree afterwards beautiful and glorious with Sprigs and Branches and changable colours And indeed this liberty the Philosophers have taken to call it what they list they call it their Toad which crawleth on the ground and feedeth upon the slime of the Earth because before it is quite black it may â—â—semble the colours of a Toad and its likeness pusfing and swelling and rugged with bunches and blisters and knobs Others call it a Spirit killed with its own deadly poison that is Mercury dissolving Gold in which dissolved Body which then seems a Spirit there is a hidden ferment which may recongeal the same this fermental virtue it is that doth coagulate or thicken the Water that to the wonder of the Beholders what before was thinner and thinner doth after 40 days thicken till it come to a dust or powder like to impalpable Atoms But I shall not insist upon these denominations there being so many given to it by the Envious that there is nothing almost in the World that is black or may be made black by the Fire but they have named it by it Also whatever is filthy or faeculent or unsavoury either to taste or smell they have Allusively called their Stone by in reference to its first putridness or corruption So likewise when by continuance of decoction the colour changeth to white they then call it their Swan their Dove their white Stone of Paradise their white Gold their Alablaster their white Smoak and in a word whatever is white they do call it by And so the Red they name their Vermilion their red Lead their Poppy of the Rock their Tyre their Basilisk their red Lion and in sum it borrows the names of all red things Now thou art entred the first five Gates of the Philosophers Castle for do not believe but that Calcination is verily Putrefaction and is done by Dissolution Separation and Conjunction as if thou hast attended this discourse thou mayst easily conceive only here is the Sophism after this total Calcination there is a relenting again for as I said before our Operation is but turning as it were of a Wheel which runs one half of its circulation directly backwards to its first progress Thou sublimest so long till the Body is made as volatile as it may be this is the activity of the Spirit then thou congealest so long till all appear like Atoms and then is thy bodily virtue active and thy Spirit passive then thy Spirit begins to be active again and thy Compound which was apparently fixed relents again and distils as before till it come to its height again of volatility which is again a Separation then is celebrated again a Conjunction Tetraptive and from that time all ascends and descends together and there is such an union that there doth not then as at first exhale a quick Fume and descend upon the bodily Moles but all ascends like to a glorious Tree with branches and is not sublimed to the top but sprouts up like the tender Forst in a fair morning which falls and rises till all become a Powder impalpable So then after Calcination is again a Solution and that divides between Azoth and Laton and a distilling Separation in which Azoth washeth Laton and after that a Conjunction not of the four Elemental qualities only which was in the first Conjunction but of the Elements themselves the Body Soul and Spirit and then is made another Calcination into a white Calx which by continual decoction relents again and is made volatile again for our Wheel goes round and when it is come thither whence it set forth it begins again Thus is made a third Solution Sublimation
come to that pass that they will ascend no more but remain at the bottom of the Vessel together which is Conjunction in which Conjunction they swell bubble and boil till they calcine and putrefie The black Earth impalpable like Atoms of the Sun being the highest degree of Putrefaction and this is a secret not so clearly discovered by any before THe Sun is set no wonder darkest Night Doth veil the Crystal Skie The Moon 's eclips'd no marvel that her light Doth from us hidden lie The Sun 's declined to the Northern Pole And O the change that 's made The pearly drops are turned to a Coal All brightness quite doth fade Is this Apollo bright whose glory did A lustre great display Is this fair Phoebe who ere light was hid Did shine as bright as day Is this the King whose glory and renown Through all the World did ring Is this the Queen who far and near was known Oh 't is a wondrous thing Such glory and such beauty thus should fade That what before did shine More bright then Tagus should so soon be made More foul then ere 't was fine The Earth doth melt the Heavens drop down rain The Rocks which do relent They seem like Water then condense again Till all their moisture's spent To Ashes they return for Dust they were This Dust from Water springs Therefore at length they melt to Water clear Which all to Spirits brings The Nest is Earth therefore they will congeal To sparkling pearly dew Shining like tender Pearl on which doth steal A Body dry and new And then the parts like Atoms of the Sun For fineness do appear Rejoyce for now thou half thy course hast run Nor hast thou cause to fear Proceed until thou see the sparkling red Oh happy sight to see By which unto the Royal Palace led Thou shalt aye happy be Happy are they who shall not miss to find The new uprising Sun More happy they who with renewed mind In God find rest alone AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Third Gate Which is SEPARATION The Third Gate Opened Which is SEPARATION Separation doth each part from other divide The subtle from the gross the thick from the thin But manual Separation see thou set aside For that pertains to Fools which little fruit doth win But in our Separation Nature doth not blin Making division of qualities Elemental Into a fifth degree till they be turned all HAving now run through two of the twelve Gates I am come to the third which is Separation which begins so soon as the Matters have been so long circulated as to begin to hold one of another This Operation the Ancient Sages have denominated Division of Elements which afterwards they say must be joyned with a perpetual union This Separation is by others called Extraction of Natures and the parts separated are compared to two Dragons the one winged and the other without wings Artephius who for Age and Candor was next to Hermes the most eminent calls this Separation the Key of the Work which according to him is a Sublimation in a continual Vapour that what is Heavenly and subtile may ascend aloft that is to the upper part of the Vessel and there take the nature of a Body Heavenly or Spirit and what is gross may remain below in the nature of a Body Earthly which is the end of our Mastery to bring the Bodies which are compact and dry to become a Spiritual fume which is only to be done by Sublimation and Division or Separation So then our Separation is not to be understood as many foolish Alchymists do interpret it who have their Elements of which they boast much which are indeed manual done by handy-work the Glass being removed altered or renewed every time Nor are our Separations made by filter or per tritorium as many imagine who know not the nature of our Work and therefore run into such foolish fancies Nature then in our Work doth all in all who as a curious Artificer maketh no confused mixtures but first of all causeth the moisture to ascend which because it cannot get out it doth therefore condense in drops and descends so long till at length it begin to be acuated from the Body which is below for naturally all homogeneal moisture cohobated on a bodily substance with which it hath affinity is acuated by it Gold then is a Body in which the active qualities of heat and driness are more than in the Mercury and the Mercury being cohobated on it begins to be a little more Fiery or hot and then the Exhalations are more Aërial which before were more Watry and by continued Cohobation the Water partakes yet more and more of the Solary nature until at length this heat or Sulphur impregnating the Mercury cause it to congeal into a new Body or quintessence which is after the corruption of the old Body which is called the Earth or Ashes of Hermes's Tree Earth is turned into Water under black and bloe And Water after into Air under very white Then Air into Fire Elements there be no moe Of these is made our Stone of great delight But of this Separation much more I must write And Separation is called by Philosophers definition Of several qualities a Tetraptive dispersion SO then this is the method of our Operation Earth that is Sol is boiled in our Mercury in such a heat in which the Mercury may ascend constantly in a smoak and descend in drops and the Body below stand liquid and boil then shall the Water dry up under which is blackness hidden which when the Water is dryed up shall appear like the Crows Bill Then shall this Powder again relent and after 40 days rotting without fumes shall send up a smoak again which shall ascend and descend so long till the whole be made volatile and Aërial then shall the black colour vanish and the white appear This white Argent vive or Mercury animated which appears after blackness shall then totally congeal and shall be then Fire whose Nurse is the Earth then hast thou the four Elements that is cohobated thy Natures to the highest degree of perfection of the white Stone then canst thou go no further but go back and turn the same Wheel till thou hast attained the red Stone Thus hast thou the true Principles and Operation of our great Elixirs both red and white which if thou once hast thou hast Riches enough and needest no more in this life This if no more were said of this point might be enough to shew thee the truth of our true Separation yet because Philosophers have spoken much of it and indeed it is all the work to cause ascension and descension of our true Water on our true Body so long till by the Water the Body be volatized and after that by the Body the Water fixed and till that be brought to pass there will come and go the four Qualities in their season and will cause change of colours suitable
former Kingdom he Vnto his Brethren gives The worst of them doth now those Fortunes see That each in plenty lives And what their Brother was before his death That they are now become For he their sickness cures with his breath And makes them live at home No more in bondage bond 's no place can find All liberty enjoy There 's nothing here can hurt for all one mind Have all that would destroy Is banish'd from the Kingly Palace where The Streets with Gold are pav'd The Walls are Silver fine the Gates most clear Intire Gems engrav'd With wondrous Art the Windows glass most pure Which falls nor knocks can break The Drink from fear of venom still is sure Whoso virtue none can speak Whose comes there is at a place arriv'd Where neither want nor death Nor any grief is known a place contriv'd For Saints therein to breath Whom God shall choose and to his Palace bring What need he more desire Then God himself that he may praises sing Kindled with holy fire But he whose hands unclean and heart defil'd These Mysteries forbear For you th' are not cease timely for y' are wild T' have neither wit nor fear AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Fifth Gate Which is PUTREFACTION The Fifth Gate Opened Which is PUTREFACTION Now we begin the Chapter of Putrefaction Without which Pole no Seed can multiply Which must be done only by continual action Of heat in the Body moist not manually For Bodies else may not be altered naturally WE have already run through four Gates the first being opened the rest stand open at will so that thou hast need only to enter The course and method of Philosophers now doth lead us to the Gate of Putrefaction a horrible Gate whose entrance is dark with Cimmerian night dreadful with many windings and turnings And yet it is a Gate so necessary that unless you pass through it you may never expect to reap fruit from your labour for without it can be no Life nor Generation much less desired Multiplication therefore saith the Poet Felices atrum quotquot habere queant The cause of this death or corruption or rottenness proceeds from the action of continual heat not so much of the external Fire of the Athanor as of the Compound within it self in which the Fire of the Water which is against Nature doth open the perfect Body by continual contrition and decoction and so le ts loose its Sulphur that was incarcerate which is Fire of Nature that so between these two in continual action and passion together with the external heat continually acting the whole Compound is brought to corruption being sometimes roasted with external heat which doth sublime the moisture which again of its own accord returns continually and doth moisten the Earth so long until by reason of the heat it have drunk up the moisture wholly and then it dyes And unless thou see this sign of rotting of thy Compound which is done in a black colour a stinking odour and with a discontinuity of parts thy labour will still be in vain for thou mayst never expect what thou desirest to have a new form brought in till the old form be corrupted and put off Sith Christ doth witness without the Grain of Wheat Dye in the Ground increase thou mayst none get And in likewise without the Matter putrefie It may in no wise truly be alterate Neither thy Elements may be divided kindly Nor the Conjunction of them perfectly celebrate That therefore thy labour be not frustrate The privity of our putrefying well understand Or ever thou take this Work in hand THis is so constant to Natures constant proceedings that the painful Husbandman that he may have an increased Harvest commits his precious Seed to the Ground in it to rot and to be corrupted that so a new Life may spring from the old dead Body nor doth he ever expect increase so long as it remains in his Garner Right so we so long as our Material principles continue in their own nature and form they are but of a single value for Gold and Mercury are two such principles that they will for ever delude as many as proceed to work on them in a Sophistical way for whatever the Artist may think they will remain the same unto the end of the World unless pure Sol being mixed with its own pure and appropriated Mercury and set in a due heat of digestion there arise a mutual action and passion between them which without the laying on of the Artists hands will tend to a new Generation For in a convenient Fire in which the Compound may perpetually and uncessantly boyl and the subtle parts may ascend and circulate upon the gross without intermission the most digested Virtue or Soul of the fixed Body which is his basis of Tincture will be extracted by the Water and this will mix it self with the pure Spirit of the Water and with this it will ascend and return until a total separation be made of the pure from the impure and the subtle from the gross Then shall the Body draw down its Soul again and by the power of the most High it shall be united and with it the Spirit of life shall be joyned also so that all three shall become one with an union indissolvable but all this pre-supposeth a Putrefaction or Corruption of one form else cannot there be an Introduction of another Therefore since this mystery of Putrefaction is not more secret then necessary so necessary that without it there is nothing can be done to purpose that is to say with profit I shall be a little plain and full in the prosecution of this mystery For in the knowledge of this consists all that is required to make a Philosopher All the intentions of the Artist must be only so to prepare and order things that he may be sure of this terminus and when he is there come he is as sure a Master as if he had the Stone in his Cabinet By the failing of this sign the Operator is always to turn either backward to seek out some other principles or forward or to the right hand or to the left but when he is Master of this he then can fail in nothing but in the Regimen of the outward heat And Putrefaction may thus defined be After Philosophers definition to be of Bodies the slaying And in our Compound a division of things three The killed Bodies into Corruption forth leading And after unto Regeneration them ableing For things being in the Earth without doubt Be engendred of Rotation of the Heavens about THe definition that the Philosophers give of this Operation is perpetually Allegorical for this Gate they have named by all Metaphors almost in the World especially from death and dead men therefore they allegorize the Vessel in this station to Grave or Tomb and emblematically discover this Operation by the types of Skuls dead Bones and rotten Carcasses according to which Metaphors they call Putrefaction the
death of the Compound For when they saw the Body with the Water to melt in the Fire to flow and to boyl they called this Magnesia when they saw the Water partly to ascend and partly to descend and partly to remain below so that at once there was both a Sublimation in vapour and a Motion of what was below they said that it was the Spirit of the Water that ascended or more Airy part and the more Fiery part which rejoyceth most to be united to and hidden in Earth remained below for that was more capable of the Fire and did better agree with it as with its like which because it did so uncessantly swell and boyl and rage at the bottom and make the Body begin to change its colour they said it was Fire against Nature Again when they saw the ascending Vapour to change colour they said it was the Soul of the Bodies was mixed with the Spirit which because it was green they said it was a vegetative Soul and Fire of Nature Now when the Body below began to thicken they said this was an Hermaphroditical Body because part of the Water always remained below and made the Body to boyl and bubble and flow and therefore this they called a new Body compounded of two Bodies the Sun and the Moon the Man and the Wife which because it grew to a slimy consistence they named it Limus or Limbus Hyle and a Chaos or Terra Adamica When this Body began to grow very black and to send up foul Exhalations yellowish blewish and black they said this was Death and Corruption which followed the separation of the Soul from the Body Now when they see the Souls to be again united and to remain below together they knew that the Soul and Spirit were Immortal that is the Tincture or Vital Balsam was Incorruptible and because they see them again unite they knew the Soul and Spirit would renew the Bodies and this seeming Corruption was but the natural step to a glorious Regeneration for if the Souls be again united to the Bodies they will surely regenerate them and renew them and make them incorruptible for if the Spirits had not returned to this union they might only have expected the Exhalation of them for Spiritual Tinctures or Essences cannot be destroyed by corruption in many Vegetals much less in the most perfect of Minerals and Metals The union then of the Souls with the Bodies argues evidently a hidden purity under the apparent rottenness which will after Purification be exalted to transcendent Glory Hereupon they said that the Spirit and Soul which were above were the Heavenly Quintessence and the Body below was the Earth and this Circulation of Spirits were but as the Circulation of the Heavens round about the Earth and the falling drops were but as the influential dew which did cause the Earth to fructifie and the blackness and darkness were but the Winter Latitude which with its Clouds and droppings do mellow and fertilize the Earth to shoot forth with the more beautiful varieties in the Springâ—â— And therefore like as I have said before Thine Elements commixt and wisely coequate Thou keep in temperate heat eschewing evermore That they by violent heat be not incinerate To powder dry unprofitably Rubificate But into powder black as the Crows Bill With heat of our Bath or else of our Dunghill FOr this cause they looked upon this as a secret mysterious yet very natural Operation whereby the most solid and perfect Minerals are by Nature so applied one to another and cultivated that the very Earth or Ground should be found in which this noble Tree of the Hesperides may be planted and grow the Matrix or Womb should be prepared in which this noble Off-spring may again enter and be born again Therefore what by long Experience and profound Meditation Philosophers have found out and seen that also they committed and communicated unto us so that we also are made fellow Heirs of this great Treasure and we shall as faithfully communicate our knowledge for thy Instruction First then take thy Body which is Gold and thy Water which is Mercury the one ready made by Nature to thy hand the other thou must Prepare for it is not to be found in the Land of the Living but must be made Nature here is at a non-plus and so is Art taken asunder but both together effect it Mix these together in due proportion so as I have often told thee then set them to the Fire to decoct and give them a convenient heat in which they may boyl ascend and descend perpetually without any intermission night or day But especially and before all things be careful in your Internal heat to wit the proportion of your Water for your Sulphur that you must add and supply to it in the beginning of your Work in its Preparation is that which doth perform all the work within without which your External heat is of no value for it is of it self uneffectual If then thou accend this heat so much as that it predominate it will not then dissolve the Bodies as thou expectest but contrarywise burn the Flowers before they are extracted from the depth of their Marrow this thou mayst easily do either if thy Arsnick be not made as it ought or else the number of Eagles exceeded or the proportion of thy Water to thy Body not agreeing to the number of Eagles or thy Glass not well proportioned to thy Matter it will easily burn if thy Glass be too big for so the moisture will so much be dispersed about the Concave that it will not return before the Earth below be left too dry I have given Rules easily to avoid all these inconveniences And on the other hand be sure that thou do not erre in too little heat let thy Water have Fire enough within it to make a true division and corruption which if either thy Arsnick have not sufficient Fiery virtue or if the union of this and thy Water be not well attended but slightly performed or the Purgation of thy Water be not throughly made each Eagle for so two or three Eagles may not add the virtue of one or if thy number of Eagles be not just or thy proportion of quantity be not duly observed Therefore follow my advice and be careful in both these particulars and then let your External heat be so that your Compound may boyl and sublime which for its similitude is called a Balneum so long till the Vapours cease and are retained within then will the Compound rot which for its great likeness is called our Dunghill Vntil the time that Nights be passed ninety In moist heat keep them for any thing Soon after by blackness thou shalt espy That they draw fast to putrefying FIrst then our Operations begin in humido for in the beginning moisture it prevails and is called the Phlegmatick Constitution of our Embrio and this is called the Reign of the Woman which
the Liquor by virtue whereof it is fixed coming away intire both in its Pondus and Virtue This Sulphur in Gold and Silver is pure in the other Metalls less pure Therefore in Gold and Silver it is fixed in others it is fugitive in all the Metalls it is coagulated in Mercury or Argent Vive it is coagulable in Gold Silver and Mercury this Sulphur is so strongly united that the Antients did ever judge Sulphur and Mercury to be all one but we by the help of a Liquor the Invention of which in these parts of the world we owe to Paracelsus though among the Moors and Arabians it hath been and is at this day commonly known to the acuter sort of Chymists By this I say we know that the Sulphur which is in Mercury coagulable and in the Metals coagulated is external to the Internal nature of Mercury and may may be separated in the form of a tincted Metallick Oyl the remaining Mercury being then void of all Sulphur save that which may be called its Inward or Central Sulphur and is now incoagulable of it self though by our Elixir it is to be coagulated but of it self it can neither be fixt nor precipitated nor sublimed but remains un-altered in all corrosive waters and in all digestions of heat One way then of Mercury Azating all Metals and Minerals is by the Liquor Alchahest which out of all such Bodies as have Mercury in their Constitution can separate a running Argent Vive from which Argent vive all its Sulphur is then separated save that only which is Internal and Central to the Mercury which Internal Sulphur of Mercury no corrosive can touch Next to this way of universal Reduction there are also some other particular ways by which Saturn Jupiter Antimony yea even Venus and Mars may be reduced into a running Quick-silver by the help of Salts which because being corporeal they pierce not so radically as the fore-named Liquor doth they therefore do not spoil the Mercury of its Sulphur but that as much Sulphur as there in is Common Mercury so much also there in is this Mercury of the Bodies only this Mercury hath specificated qualities according to the nature of the Metal or Mineral from which it was extracted and for that reason as to our work which is to dissolve perfect Species of Metals it hath no more virtue then common Argent Vive There is than but one only humidity which is applicable unto our Work which certainly is neither of Saturn nor Venus nor is drawn from any thing which nature hath formed but from a substance compounded by the Art of the Philosopher So then if a Mercury drawn from the Bodies have not only the same deficiency of heat and superfluity of faeces as Common Mercury hath but also a distinct specificated form it must by reason of this its form be so much the farther remote from our Mercury then common Argent Vive is Our Art therefore is to compound two Principles one in which the Salt and another in which the Sulphur of Nature doth abound which are not yet perfect nor yet totally imperfect and by consequence may therefore by our Art be changed or exalted which that which is totally perfect cannot be and then by Common Mercury to extract not the Pondus but the Coelestial virtue out of the compound which virtue being Fermental begets in the common Mercury an Off-spring more noble then it self which is our true Hermaphrodite which will congeal it self and dissolve the Bodies Observe but a grain of Corn in which scarce a discernable part is Sprout and this Sprout if it were out of the Grain would die in a moment the whole grain is sown yet the Sprout only produceth the Herb So is it in our Body the Fermental Spirit that is in it is scarce a third part of the whole the rest is of no value yet all is joyned in the composition and the faeculent corporeous parts of the Body comes away with the dregs of the Mercury But beyond the example or similitude given of a grain of Corn it may be observed that the hidden and spiritual virtue of this our Body doth purge and purifie its Matrix of water in which it is sown that is it makes it cast forth a great quantity of filthy earth and a great deal of Hydropical Saline moisture For instance make thy washings for a tryal with pure and clean Fountain water weigh first a Pint of the same water and take the exact weight of it then wash thy compound 8 or 10 Eagles or times save all the faeces weigh thy Body and Mercury exactly weigh thy faeces being very dry then Distil or Sublime all that will Sublime a very little quick Mercury will ascend then put the residue of the faeces in a Crucible set them on the Coals and all the faeculency of the Mercury will burn like a Coal yet without fume when that is all consumed weigh the remaining faeces and thou shalt find them to be two thirds of thy Body the other third being in the Mercury weigh the Mercury which thou Sublimest and the Mercury prepared by it self and the weight of both will not recompence thy Mercuries weight by far So then boyl up thy water to a skin in which thou madest thy Lotions for that is a thick water and in a cool place thou shalt have Crystals which is the Salt of Mercury Crude and no way fit for Medicines Yet it is a content for the Artists to see how the Heterogeneities of Mercury are discovered which no Art save the Liquor of Alchahest can do and that in a destructive not a generative way as this is for this operation of ours is made between Male and Female within their own kind between which there is a Ferment which effecteth that which no other thing in the world could do In all truth I tell you that if you should take our imperfect compound Body per se and Mercury per se and Ferment them alone though you might bring out of the one a most pure Sulphur and out of the other Mercury of Mercury which is the Nut of Mercury yet with these thou couldest effect nothing for Fermental virtue is the wonder of the world and it is by it that water becomes Herbs Trees and Plants Fruits Flesh Blood Stones Minerals and every thing seek then for it only and rejoyce in it as in a deservedly invaluable treasure Now know that Fermentation works or ferments not out of kind neither do Salts Ferment Metals Wilt thou then know whence it is that some fixt Alcalies do extract a Mercury out of Minerals and out of the more imperfect Metals Consider then that in all these Bodies the Sulphur is not so radically mixt and united as it is in Silver and Gold Now Sulphur is of kin to divers Alcalies that are extraordinarily dissolved or melted with it and by this means the Mercurial parts are disjoyned and the Argent vive is
Metalline Bodies they yet either joyn Males with Males or else Females with Females or else they work on each alone or else they take Males which are charged with natural inabilities and Females whose Matrix is vitiated Thus by their own inconsideration they frustrate their own hopes and then cast the blame upon the Art when as indeed it is only to be imputed to their own folly in not understanding the Philosophers I know many pitiful Sophisters do dote on many Stones Vegetable Animal and Mineral and some to those add the fiery Angelical Paradaical Stone which they call a Wonder-working Essence and because the mark they aim at is so great the ways also by which they would attain their scope they make also agreeable that is a double way One way they call Via Humida the other they call Via Sicca to use their languages The latter way is the Labyrinthian path which is fit only for the great ones of the earth to tread in the other the Daedalean Path an easie way of small cost for the poor of the world to enterprize But this I know and can testifie that there is but one way and but only one Regimen no more colours than ours and what we say or write otherwise is but to deceive the unwary For if every thing in the world ought to have its proper causes there cannot be any one end which is produced from two wayes of working on distinct Principles Therefore we protest and must again admonish the Reader that in our former writings we have concealed much by reason of the two ways we have insinuated which we will briefly touch There is one Work of ours which is the Play of Children and the Work of Women and that is Decoction by the Fire and we protest that the lowest degree of this our work is that the matter be stirred up and may hourly circulate without fear of breaking of the Vessel which for this reason ought to be very strong but our lineal Decoction is an Internal Work which advances every day hour and is distinct from that of outward heat and therefore is both invisible and insensible In this our work our Diana is our body when it is mixed with the water for then all is called the Moon for Laton is whitened and the Woman bears rule our Diana hath a wood for in the first days of the Stone our Body after it is whitened grows vegetably In this wood are at the last found two Doves for about the end of three weeks the Soul of the Mercury ascends with the Soul of the dissolved Gold these are infolded in the everlasting Arms of Venus for in this season the confections are all tincted with a pure green colour These Doves are circulated seaven times for in seaven is perfection and they are left dead for they then rise and move no more our Body is then black like to a Crows Bill for in this operation all is turned to Powder blacker than the blackest Such passages as these we do oftentimes use when we speak of the Preparation of our Mercury and this we do to deceive the simple and it is also for no other end that we confound our operations speaking of one when we ought to speak of another For if this Art were but plainly set down our operations would be contemptible even to the foolish Therefore believe me in this that because our works are truly natural we therefore do take the liberty to confound the Philosophers work with that which is purely Natures work that so we might keep the simple in ignorance concerning our true Vinegre which being unknown their labour is wholly lost Let me then for a close say only thus much Take our Body which is Gold and our Mercury which is seven times acuated by the marriage of it with our Hermaphroditical body which is a Chaos and it is the splendor of the Soul of the God Mars in the Earth and water of Saturn mix these two in such a Pondus as Nature doth require in this mixture you have our invisible Fires for in the Water or in the Mercury is an active Sulphur or Mineral Fire and in the Gold a dead passive but yet actual Sulphur Now when that Sulphur of the Gold is stirred up and quickned there is made between the Fire of Nature which is in the Gold and the Fire against Nature which is in the Mercury a Fire partly of the one and partly of the other for it partakes of both and by these two Fires thus united into one is caused both Corruption which is Humiliation and Generation which is Glorification and Perfection Now know that God only governs this way of the Internal Fire Man being ignorant of the progress thereof only by his Reason beholding its operations he is able to discern that it is hot that is that it doth perform the actions of heat which is Decoction In this Fire there is no Sublimation for Sublimation is an Exaltation But this Fire is such an Exaltation that it is Perfection it self and that beyond it is no progress All our Work then is only to multiply this Fire that is to circulate the Body so long until the Virtue of the Sulphur be augmented Again this Fire is an invisible Spirit and therefore not having Dimensions as neither above nor below but every where in the Sphere of the activity of our Matter in the Vessel So that though the material visible substance do sublime and ascend by the action of the Elemental heat yet this Spiritual Virtue is always as well in that which subsides in the bottom as in that which is in the upper part of the Vessel For it is as the Soul in the Body of Man which is every where at the same time and yet bounded or terminated in none This is the Ground of one Sophism of ours viz. when we say that in this true Philosophical Fire there is no Sublimation for the Fire is the Life and the Life is a Soul which is not at all subject to the dimensions of Bodies Hence also it is that the opening of the Glass or cooling of the same during the time of Working kills the Life or Fire that is in this secret Sulphur and yet not one Grain of the matter is lost The Elemental Fire then is that which any Child knows how to kindle and govern but it is the Philosopher only that is able to discern the true inward Fire for it is a wonderful thing which acts in the Body yet is no part of the Body Therefore the Fire is a Coelestial Virtue it is uniformed that is it is always the same until the period of its Operation is come and then being come to perfection it acts no more for every Agent when the end of its action is come then rests Remember then that when we speak of our Fire which sublimes not that thou do not mistake and think that the moisture of the Compound which is within
the Glass ought not to Sublime for that it must do uncessantly but the Fire that sublimes not is the Metalline love which is above and below and in all places alike Now then for a close to all that hath been said learn and be well advised what matter you take in hand for an evil Crow lays an evil Egg as the Proverb hath it Let thy Seed be pure and thy Matrix also pure then shalt thou see a Noble Off-spring Let the Fire without be such as in which our Confections may play to and fro uncessantly and this in a few days will produce that which thou most longest for the Crows Bill Continue then thy Decoction and in an hundred and thirty days thou shalt see the White Dove and in ninety days more the Sparkling Cherubim STAVE XII And these Two things be best he addeth anon For him that worketh the Alchymy to take Our Gold and our Silver therewith to make all one Wherefore I say who will our Pearl and Ruby make The said Principles look that he not forsake For at the beginning if the Principles be true And if so be by craft he can them also take In th' end truly his work he shall not rue THus come we to the last Conclusion which is that if a Mans Operations be Regular and his Principles true his end will be certain viz. the Mastery O Fools and Blind that do not consider how each thing in the world hath his proper Cause and Progress in Operation Think you if a Seaman should with a gallant Coach intend to Sail to any place beyond Sea he would not find his attempt to be foolish Or if with a Ship gallantly furnished he should Row at Random he may not sooner stumble on an infortunate Rock then arrive at the golden Coast Such fools are they who seek our secret in trivial matters and yet hope to find the Gold of Ophir For the more exact Guiding of your Practice take notice of these Twenty Rules following Rule I. Whatever any Sophister may suggest unto you or you may read in any Sophistical Author yet let none take you from this ground viz. That as the end you look for is Gold so let Gold be the subject on which you work and none other Rule II. Let none deceive you with telling you that our Gold is not common but Philosophical for common Gold is dead which is true But as we order it there is made a quickening of it as a grain of Corn in the Earth is quickened So then in our work after six Weeks Gold that was dead becomes quick living and spermatical and in our composition it may be called Our Gold because it is joyn'd with an Agent that will certainly quicken it So a Condemned Man is called a Dead Man though at present living Rule III. Besides Gold which is the Body or Male you must have another Sperm which is the Spirit and Soul or Female and this is Mercury in Flux and Form like to common Argent Vive yet more clean and pure There are many who instead of Mercury will have strange Waters or Liquors which they stile by the name of Philosophical Mercury Be not deceived by them for what a Man sows that he must look to reap If thou shalt sow thy Body in any Earth but that which is Metalline and Homogeneal to it thou shalt instead of a Metalline Elixir reap an unprofitable Calx which will be of no value Rule IV. Our Mercury is in substance one with common Argent Vive but far different in Form For it hath a Form Coelestial Fiery and of excellent Virtue and this is the Nature which it receives by our Artificial Preparation Rule V. The whole Secret of our Preparation is that thou take that Mineral which is next of kin to Gold and to Mercury Impregnate this with Volatile Gold which is found in the reins of Mars with this purifie your Mercury until seaven times are past then it is fitted for the Kings Bath Rule VI. Yet know that from seaven times to ten the Mercury is made better and better and is more active being by each Preparation acuated by our true Sulphur which if it exceed in number of Preparations becomes too fiery which instead of dissolving the Body will Coagulate it self Rule VII This Mercury thus acuated is after to be distilled in a Glass retort twice or thrice and that for this reason because some Atoms of the Body may be in it which were insensibly left in the Preparation of the Mercury afterwards it is to be cleansed well with Vinegar and Sal-armoniack then is it fit for the work Rule VIII Chuse your Gold for this work pure and clean from any mixture if it be not so when you buy it make it so by Purgation then let it be made fine either by Filing Malleating Calcining with Corrosives or any other way by which it may be made most subtile Rule IX Now come to your mixture in which take of the aforesaid Body so chosen and prepared one Ounce of Mercury as is above taught animated two Ounces or three at the most mix them in a Marble which may be warmed so hot as water will heat it grind both together till they be well incorporated then wash the mixture with Vinegar and Salt till it be very pure And lastly Dulcifie it with warm water and dry it carefully Rule X. Know now that whatever we say out of Envy our way is none other and we protest and will protest that neither We nor any of the Antients knew any other way for it is impossible that our secret can be wrought by any other Principles or any other disposition then this Our Sophism lies only in the two kinds of Fire in our work the Internal secret Fire which is Gods Instrument hath no qualities perceptible to man of that Fire we speak often and seem yet to speak of the External heat and hence arise among the unwary many Errours This is our Fire which is graduated for the External heat is almost linear all the work to the white work it is one without alteration save that in the seaven first days we keep the heat a little slack for certainty and security sake which an experienced Philosopher need not do But the Internal governing heat is insensibly graduated hourly and by how much that is daily vigorated by the continuance of Decoction the Colours are altered and the Compound maturated I have unfolded a main knot unto you take heed of being insnared here again Rule XI Then you must provide a Glass Tun in which you may perfect your work without which you could never do any thing Let it be either Oval or Spherical so big in reference to your Compound that it may hold about twelve times the quantity of it within its Sphere let your Glass be thick and strong clear and free of flaws with a neck about a Span or Foot long In this Egg put your matter sealing the
thou art come to this then shalt thou no more discern a distinction between the Dissolver and the Dissolved for the Water shall neither ascend nor descend go out nor in alone but the Fire of Nature shall accompany it and the colour of the mature Sulphur which is unseparably joyned shall tincture thy Water It appeareth not but by effect to sight SO that thou shalt never see them severed one from the other but shalt discern them by the effect and by the eye of thy mind more then of thy body Therefore saith the Philosopher Azoth and Fire are sufficient for thee in the middle and end but not in the beginning for then they are not our Mercury that is our universally united Mercury But in the first days of the Stone there appear four Elements of which three are in the Mercury sublimed and one in Sol which is counted all for Earth till it be dissolved and then it fermenteth the Mercury and makes the three qualities of it which it hath drawn from three substances to unite into one Mercury which hath all in it one essential property and that is Solary which first will shew the Moon in the full and is the true one matter of all our Secrets our one Image out of which springs white and red not bare Sol and Luna as will spring out of our Mercury which we prepare with our hands but the white and red Elixirs which shew that this Mercury which Nature hath made in the Glass without our help is far beyond that Mercury which we prepared with a laborious toil This is the Stone of which we mean Who so our Writings conceiveth aright ANd verily he that hath well studied our Books shall understand that this general one Mercury which we call Azoth is indeed our Stone which wanteth only digestion for it is inseparably united not in a Dyprative Conjunction which is barely a mixture of the Sun with our Mercury or Triptative which is a mixture and union of the Body Soul and Spirit which is before Putrefaction but Tetraptive which is the Anatization of qualities which is the first degree of the white Stone which will then grow higher and higher till the Moon come up to the full It is a Soul and Substance bright THis Stone or Virtue multiplicative is not in relation to the matter but the form which doth make the matter to receive and after impress Tinctures for who could believe that Sol in which the virtue is but unary I mean only sufficient for it self should by the addition of our Mercury which in reference to its material parts is below the degree of Sol and needs digestion and that only to maturate it to the height of Sol I say that by the mixture of those two Venerial Tinctures should be multiplied in a manner infinitely Of Sol and Luna a subtile Influence WEre it not that this Tincture which in the Mercury is Sol and Luna were as a Soul that is a spiritual thing it were impossible it is therefore the very Dos faecunditatis which is in Minerals which doth appear in their Lunary and Solary Tinctures which was put and planted on and in them in the first Benediction of Crescite Multiplicamini which increasing is in some things juxta quantitatem This is in quality Whereby the Earth receiveth resplendence SO then the matter of Minerals is a dead passive thing in which there is included a Light which is cloathed vitali Aura aetheria as I may speak this form of Light is it which doth actuate and specificate or determine the matter and this splendor or Light is in all Metals Sol or Luna which are conspicuous more eminently in those two perfect Bodies Gold and Silver but are in other Mineral Bodies more Clouded and Eclipsed with an earthly faeculent interposition between the fulgor and the superfluities which is the Imperfection of such Bodies and is accompanied with a rawness and inconstancy in the Fire the Impure carrying away the Pure For what is Sol and Luna saith Avicen But Earth which is pure White Red SO then Sol and Luna is more formal then material for the matter is a gross Terrene Substance but the form of Light purifying the Substance is a most subtile spiritual thing which doth ennoble the grossness of the matter by a Fire-abiding Tincture Take from it the said Clearness and then That Earth will stand but in little stead BUt if this Tincture could be separated from the pondus of the matter the remainder would be an unprofitable Terrestriety Our work therefore is for to advance this Light by exaltation in the matter which as it in its simplicity is but in unity so it may be brought to a Virtue millenary and gradually so exalted that the matter would seem to be quite swallowed up of the form and yet in this exaltation it is not the moles or pondus that is the Solary or Lunary Virtue but a Light whose multiplication is not in the increase of pondus but in the circulation of Natures till the Heavenly illuminate the Earthly with an immediate Beam all interposition being removed out of the way The whole Compound is called our Lead FOr to attain this admirable multiplication Philosophers have found out a most subtile yet very natural Composition which hath been not a little sought for by many this the wise Antients both to describe the Fountain of these Mysteries as also to hide the Secret from the unworthy have mystically called their Lead The quality of Clearness from Sol and Luna doth come THis Lead so called from the appearing baseness of its original is notwithstanding of an admirable power for it contains the Bath for Sol and Luna that is the Sun and Moon enter into it and send out their Tinctures into it which it receiveth and like to a fertile Soil ennobleth it an hundred and an hundred fold These are our Menstrues both all and some THus have I in general given you a description of our Menstrues which are three Acetum Elixir and Azoth which I shall now particularly describe Bodies with the first we Calcine naturally perfect THe first Menstrue we call our sharp Vinegar with infinite other names which it will be tedious for to recite and with this is made our Magical Solution of Sol this saith Sendivogius is Menstruum mundi in sphaera Lunae toties rectificatum ut possit calcinare Solem. In this saith the noble Author of the Hermetical Arcanum is made Eclipsis Solis Lunae in Cauda Draconis this is as Artephiâ—â— saith the only Instrument in the World for our Art for it causeth the Sun to putrefie that is it loseth its hard compaction and makes it to be an impalpable Powder as saith the truth-telling Flammel In this Calcination as all Authors testifie and our own Experience hath taught us Natures are united Colours are mingled and one holds of the other and this is the period of the first Menstruum which ends in
seeking that in many things which is verily but in one thing for in all the world there is not any one subject but this Ripley after the Rehearsal of all his Errors tells you That he never saw true Work but one And Geber Exacte inquit singula sumus experti idque probatis rationibus nihil invenimus praeter solum unctuosam humiditatem penetrantem tingentem c. And Artephius saith There is no other subject in the World for this Art naming it although in a Philosophick manner wonderous subtilly I counsel thee with Ripley to learn to know this one thing which I have faithfully declared and I know what I have declared experimentally to be true He that understands me will have cause to thank God and me for what Light I have given to Ripley He that with me understands Ripley will easily discern With the second which is an humidity Vegetable reviving what earst was dead OUr second Water or Menstruum or Fire is our Elixir which is an Elixation of our Matters or drawing forth the Tincture out of our dissolved Bodies which doth cause our dead Body to rise and to spring forth in Sprigs and Branches like to the tender Grass in the Spring out of the Field and this so long until an intire Triptative Union be made of Body Soul and Spirit In this operation our Body of the Sun hath its dead moles turned into a living quick active Spirit and our Compound after death begins to sprout and to shew its true Vegetative nature it is indowed with a green Colour which is the sign of the growth of all things Both Principles Materials must loosed be HEre your Natures are changed and hold one of another and become one inseparably that is the Solary Nature is not to be divided from the Mercury nor the Fire from the Water but with one the other is always moved and so though there yet be a superius and an â—nferius an ascendens and subsidens yet now quod est superius est sicut id quod est inferius And Formals else they stand in little stead NOw between the two Extreams of Mercury and Sulphur you have a marvellous medium ingendered now the form of Gold is taken quite away and it hath at present an accidental imperfect form which is the mean through which it passeth to its transcendent perfection These Menstrues therefore know I thee reed LAbour with all thy might to attain the skill of these two first Menstruums Theoretically and Practically the first is to be by thee prepared and proportioned in the beginning before thou attempt any thing When thou hast the true Nymphs Bath then joyn this Spouse with her beloved Husband and see if she will make his Body fall to sunder in impalpable Atoms Then let Saturn be thy Chamberlain and let him gather together these dissevered members and of them make one broth in which is blackness compleat after which followeth greenness and then shalt thou know that thy Compound is by the living God endowed with a vegetable Soul Without the which neither true Calcination Done may be nor true Dissolution HE who knoweth not the Mystery of these two Menstrues can never attain either to Calcination or Dissolution of the Philosophers The Mystery of the first consists in the acuating of thy Vinegar with the Blood of our Green Lyon and the Soul of the Fiery Dragon which is by seven Eagles which are seven Cohobations and Depurations of thy feminine Sperm till it conceive a spiritual seed or true natural heat to animate thy young King The Mystery of the second Menstrue consists in the true proportion of thy first Water with its own Body and the administration of true heat external by which the combat between the Eagles and the Lyon may be stirred up thus shall the Duel be ended the Lyon rent in pieces and the Carrion of its Carcass shall kill the Eagles and out of these Atoms shall the second Water be made apparent by Dissolution With the third Humidity most permanent THe third Menstrue is by Artephius called the second Water for our second he doth joyn together with the first although where he doth particularize the three Fires he doth then distinguish three Menstruums The like course many Philosophers have used in the description of their Operations some omitting the first or at least confounding it with the second for the greater obscuring of the Art But we have beyond what any have hitherto performed particularly insisted upon the three in order and have taken more pains in the discovery of the first because the wise Ancients have taken such pains to conceal that most and after that we have made an orderly proceeding to the second which we have in like sort handled and this being performed we do now address our selves to the third This is called by Ripley a most permanent Humidity and note by the way that the first Water is called by Authors a permanent Water likewise but take notice that there is a different reason for each denomination for first of all all Mercury is Water permanent that is the parts have no Heterogeneity they will not leave one another in the examen of the Fire but either all flyes and is unconstant or else all abides and is constant in the tryal of Vulcan and so is our first Menstruum And in this our Mercury and Common Mercury agree besides the identity of matter for it is the form only that distinguisheth them But in the next place our Water is permanent with the Body which Common Mercury is not that is it by digestion doth unite not only adhere to it so that both together do make one Individuum which is done by our secret Conjunction But lastly when the Body is thus by our Water reduced at last it comes that the four Elements are united in this Water After Putrefaction and Purification which is the last most laudable Tetraptive Conjunction and now the Tincture is the Spirit and the Spirit is the Soul and the Soul is the Body and all these are one Incombustible and unctuous in his Nature THis is our true Incombustible Mercury for it is totally purged from all its burning faeculency Gold though it be a pure Metal in respect of others which are imperfect yet compared with our Stone it hath also its faeces but this when it is taken away by Putrefaction and Ablution then becomes a total separation of what is precious from what is vile and as the Philosopher well saith In the troubles of this our stormy Sea all that is pure will ascend and all that is impure descend and will abide in the bottom of the Vessel in the form of a combust Earth then is made the new Heaven and the new Earth pray to God then that thou mayst see when there shall be no more Sea Yet I say before thou hast this final Inceration thou hast this most incombustible Menstruum and most permanent in which Nature and
Art have conspired and made a Purification beyond what Nature alone could ever have brought to pass Therefore this Mercury though it be liquid and in the form of Mercury it is notwithstanding Unctuous that is great with Child which Child is Sulphur which Sulphur it will in the end bring forth and shall then be sealed up in the belly of this Infant which is when all is fixed and Mercury is then hidden under the fixity of Sulphur Hermes Tree unto Ashes is burnt IT doth therefore naturally incline it self unto Inceration for Earth is the Nurse of our Stone and in it is its virtue attained and its perfection intire according to noble Hermes in his Smaragdine Table Vis saith he ejus est integra si versa fuerit in terram By vertue of this third permanent pure incombustible Water thou shalt at last attain a total Inceration for this Water though it be wholly Mercurial to sight yet hath it in its own Bowels its own Sulphur nay it is all Sulphur and that all incombustible This work is called the burning of Hermes Tree to Ashes which is done thrice first into a black unctuous Calx as impalpable as Atoms which are only to be discerned in the Sun-beams secondly into a fine white Calx in which is the Moon in the full the third a red Calx in which the Sun is Orient Now know that the first Calcination is from the vertue of the Sun in which the Sun seeks to rise but by reason of the equal opposition it finds from the water it is beclouded and after through the interposition of the Earth totally Eclipsed This Fire therefore because of the mixture of it with the natural Fire of Sol which is in it dissolved is called unnatural the first Fire of our Water is called Fire against nature and the Fire of the Sulphur of the perfect Body is called Fire of nature In this operation through the power and will of the Almighty the Body which hath been so long dead is by this Water quickned and actually sprouts like to a Vegetable for when the pores of it are opened by the moistning of our Water it straight begins to follow the Spirit upon the Fire the Spirit then doth mount aloft which the Body thus made tender cannot follow but as the Poet saith non passibus aequis as a Son that is little followeth his Father It therefore in a token of its friendship with the Water doth bud forth like to the tender Frost upon the surface of the Earth and retains a quantity of the Water with it self occupying a middle room between the bottom and the top in which respects the Philosophers have called it their Soul which to shew its union to the Body riseth no higher then it can have a root or Basis below and to manifest its love to the Spirit it doth as it were climb after it higheâ— and higher for its season until at length it return from whence it came And verily this Soul is the Magnetical Medium between the Spirit and the Body which doth desire the Spirit as its true drink and therefore as it grows dry it doth attract the greater drops of sweat which falling to the Earth arise in a pleasant fume and do moisten the growing virtue with a pleasant dew by reason of which it grows every day more and more This Tree of ours some have compared to one thing and some to another some to a Cypress or Fir-Tree which indeed may seem to resemble it others to Haw-Thorn Trees as Ripley in his Gate of Cibation others to Shrubs and Bushes others to thick Woods and in these Woods saith Lambsprint there is a Beast all over black I confess there is a similitude between our Germination and all these others because of the Humidity of the Compound which is ever and anon returning by drops have likened it to a moorish low Bog in which Rushes grow and Toads keep others have called it their Coral which is indeed the fittest comparison for in our Tree there are Shoots and Sprigs without any thing that may be properly likened to Leaves as then Coral is an union of a Vegetable and a Stony nature so is it in our Tree for Stones and Minerals are of one Imposition our Tree is Metalline and yet through the power of God it seems to Vegetate 2ly Coral grows under the water where one would think no Vegetable could grow ours also grows in a heat in which no Vegetable but it self can grow 3ly Coral hath many Sprigs and Branches without Leaves so is our Tree 4ly Coral as it is under water hath a most exquisite biting tast which in the Air it quickly loseth so our Stone or Tree Metalline in its place is of a pontique fiery nature but taken out it in a short space loseth the same irrecoverably 5ly There are five sorts of Coral the common Gray the Milk White the Green the Bloud Red and the Black so our Tree is at his periods of all these colours and in this form which Tree by the heat of the Fire is dryed to a Calx which is called the Ashes of Hermes Tree Lastly Coral is more heavy then any other Vegetable and so is our Tree beyond all Vegetables yea and Coral it self in ponderosity It was not therefore a fortuitous comparison that Philosophers named their Mastery the Tree of the Hesperides nor is it in vain that they bring in Jason pouring Broth at the Root of it to attain the Mastery for verily â—he wise Philosopher noted by Jason â—o governing his Fire that the Lunaria or Water of the Moon may return to the Earth in which these Trees grow the Earth will at length be so dryed by the â—eat of the Sun that it shall afford the Tree no more moisture then shall the Tree it self be calcined by the prevailing â—eat into a Powder impalpable first black then white then red Therefore â—s our little Glass by Flammel in his Summary named the Philosophers Garden in which the Sun riseth and setteth and the Philosophers Tree is moistned with the dew of Heaven day and night without â—ntermission It is our natural Fire most sure THis Mercury drawn out of the Sun is the true natural heat in the acuaâ—ing and stirring up of which is the whole secret of the Mastery this is the honoured Salt when this is made to appear thy operations will be so admirable that they will take up thy whole worldly content and with their variety the time will seem so short that thou wilt not take notice of any tediousness in the passing of it Our Mercury our Sulphur our Tincture pure THis is our Mercury which cannot be attained with money which is nothing but Sulphur and Sulphur which is nothing but Tincture in which all Elements are proportioned perfectly Our Soul our Stone born up with wind In the Earth ingendred Bear this in mind THis is our Body which is now become all Soul and all Spirit all the
own accord till the dry become moist again and till a Soul return then shall thy Tincture proceed forward to a new Germination and shall be indowed with a Vegetative Soul Govern thy Bath sweetly until thou have a Tincture of Citrine which is a sign that thy Water is now impregnated with the Oyl immarcessible Then is that Menstruum visible to sight THen shalt thou discover what before was hidden and see what before was invisible and shalt say with the Philosopher O Nature how thou makest Gold volatile that was most fixed Therefore have they passed one into another An Oyl is drawn out in the colour of Gold THis is our Virgins Milk of the Sun which is yellow with this and our perfect Tincture we make our Blessed Oyl which hath not its Peer among all the works of God next to the Immortal Soul of man the Glass of Tri-unity the Sabbath of perfection O happy they that attain to it Or like thereto out of fine red Lead YEt a succedaneum of this noble Medicine is found in the loyns of Saturn in the bowels of our despised Infant which some true and loyal Sons of Nature through the great mercy of God have attained without knowing our great Arcanum which a man would think marvellous This is our red Lead our Mercury essencificate and coagulated into a chaos of Spiritual Gold and after dissolved into a quintessence as red as Bloud which because it is made out of the very Essential Mercury of our Stone which is our first Water I shall leave it undiscovered which otherwise if it might be explained without danger of prostituting the other Secret to unworthy people I would for the good of Mankind proclaim it with Trumpets Which Raymund said when he was old Much more then Gold would stand in stead THis Oyl or Quintessence this Balsam of Health we do therefore prize for its wonderful virtue not so much for that by means of it Poverty that great snare may be avoided but for its wonderful prevailing excellency against all Diseases both of body and mind as witnesseth Lully Trevisan Artephius with that excellent Book intituled Aurea Hora or Consurgens Aurora For when he was for Age near dead He made thereof Aurum Potabile Which him revived as men might see BY vertue of this Quintessence Artephius testifieth that he lived above a thousand years Flammel also recordeth of it that it triumpheth over all the Miseries of the World Johannes de Laznioro is more bold and saith that if in the Agony of death a man should tast but a Grain of it all the mortal Pestilence would depart from him Since then this Knowledge is so wonderfully profitable being the very Looking-glass of Nature the Antidote against Poverty and Sickness and consequently the Cut-throat of Covetousness Pride Ambition and such like sordid Affections who would not bestow a little time in the Inquiry of it In which let me assure thee in the very words of Trevisan the Art is so plain that if it were nakedly described it would be contemptible And yet in vulgar Mechanicks how frequent is it for men to serve seven eight yea ten years Apprentiship to attain them And in some that are a little more ingenious how frequently are considerable sums of Money bestowed to boot Yet in this noble Art so far excelling all Humane Sciences as the Sun doth a Candle who will imploy himself with diligence unless it be some Money-minded Sots who seek only for Riches and yet how soon are even they weary So that few or none persist in their Inquiry save a few Roguish Sophisters who live by Cozening by reason of such the Art is scandalized and ill spoken of Yet trust me for I speak knowingly the Art is both true and easie yea so easie that if you did see the Experiment you could not believe it I made not five wrong Experiments in it before I found the truth although in some particular turnings of the Encheiresis I erred oft yet so as I in my error knew my self a Master and in less then full two years and a half of a vulgar Jgnoramus I became a true Adept and have the Secret through the goodness of God And that this is true there are those alive that can bear witness to this my writing which I penn'd for the sake of the Ingenious that they may have Ariadne's thread stretched out to guide them so with the blessing of God they shall by their own Experience see and know that I wrote nothing but what the Light of Experience far beyond all imaginary conjectures hath taught me to be true ANd now my Muse let it not irksome seem To thee of Natures Mysteries to sing Those hidden Mysteries which many deem Nought but delusions with them for to bring This is th' opinion of the Vulgar rude To whom there 's hardly any selcouth thing But seems a Juggling trick that would delude Their fancies with an empty wondering Therefore against it they with thundering words do ring There is a fiery Stone of Paradise So call'd because of its Celestial hew Named of Ancient years by Sages wise Elixir made of Earth and Heaven new Anatically mixt strange to relate Sought for by many but found out by few Above vicissitudes of Nature and by fate Immortal like a Body fixt to shew Whose penetrative vertue proves a Spirit true His property is as the Sages told Metals imperfect which before would burn Six to transmute into most perfect Gold And five into the finest Silver turn Not equalled by Metals of the Mine Which while some seek they madly seem to spurn The pricks which proves in th' end a bad design And gives them cause sadly at length to mourn And to bewail their destiny like men forlorn For why they do not well premeditate The nature of the thing they would attain The only thirst of Gain doth animate These Gold-adoring wretches who maintain Their mad expence with many a cursed lye Nor from false perjury will they refrain Thus they allure fools by flattery To trust their dotage for the hope of gain This last so long till in the suds they both remain Then Covetousness wrangles with Deceit And curses him for all his lewd expence The other being conscious of his cheat With subtle words doth make a sly defence But what is past can never be recall'd This grieves the Churl who vows for that offence He 'l have the Jugglers future pranks forestall'd Lays him in Gaol O monstrous change from thence The great Stone-maker through a Grate doth beg for pence But he who will a studious Searcher be Of Truth let him such Sophisters eschew And if he will but be advis'd by me Of false ways I 'le him warn and shew him true Beg humbly of thy God to be thy guide For thou must pass through hidden ways by few Traced and that thy suit be not deny'd Intreat of him thy heart for to renew Thus qualifi'd thou mayst thy Journey never
side spiritual WHen once thou hast the true mastery of our Dissolution thou needest take no care for Congelation for governing it on with thy Fire thou shalt attain Coagulation without any laying on of hands Therefore saith Ricardus above all things it is wonderful that in our work Calcination Dissolution Sublimation Putrefaction Separation Conjunction Death and Purification should be performed in one Vessel and one linear decoction without laying on of hands for verily the Dissolution of the Body thickens the Spirit as it is in Water in which Gum or such a thing is dissolved for by how much the one is dissolved the other is congealed this proves the naturality of our Work for as a grain of Corn is in the bowels of the Earth softned with the moist Vapour and swelleth thereby this Vapour is also terminated by the fermental odour of the Grain and so both grow up together into Stalks and Ears And we dissolve into Water which wetteth no hand For when the Earth is integratly incinerate Then is the Water congeal'd This understand For our Elements are so together concatenate That when thy Body from its first form is alterate A new form is indued immediately Since nothing being without all form is utterly SO we in our Work dissolve our Body which is Gold in its own Water in which it is softned as a Seed in its proper ground and being softned it relents into Water not diaphanous such as is the Waters of the Clouds or of Fountains but Mineral even Mercury which wetteth no hand nor cleaves to any thing but that which is of its own substance and essence So that then in our Work our two Principals work not according to their single dispositions but as conjunct the one saith the Philosopher dyeth not without its Brother therefore when thou calcinest the Earth thou dost in it and with it calcine the Water and in this the Souls of both are tyed together to the end that they may serve the wise Philosophers Therefore let all thy study be to unite Natures which thou canst never do unless thou separate first their Souls by Sublimation and afterwards unite them in blackness which a continual Circulation of thy Water upon the Earth will produce Now know that when thou seest thy Water and thy Body boil together so as to thicken one another and to congeal one another that then thy science is true and then thy Body which thus thickens is not the same which thou puttest in but a middle coagulate a terra Adamica a Limus and Chaos for one form being taken away a second necessarily follows immediately for as no Body can at any time have more than one form so can it never be void of all form And here a secret I will to thee disclose Which is the ground of our secrets all And it not known thou shalt but lose Thy labour and costs both great and small Take heed therefore in error that thou not fall The more thine Earth and the less thy moisture be The rather and better Solution shalt thou see ANd here take notice by the way that that is no total Dissolution which is before Calcination but only partial the Water resolves as much as it can of the Body so much that it doth sever between its Spirit and Body but by reason of its perfection and strong compaction it finds a great deal of difficulty before a total Resolution and therefore it putrefies what is most gross and thus brings it to Atoms which when it is once subtilized beyond the exigency of its own nature it then is dissolved and relents and then Dissolution is made totally viz. after Putrefaction Then at length it becomes all like a glorious Argent vive and this immediately before the Lunary Coagulation Know then that our first loosing is into a viscous Powder which is brought on by Incrudation or rather Liquefaction for know that till after Putrefaction our Stone and Compound is moist in the Fire but hardens more and more by how much the colder it is and softens more and more by how much hotter it is and the heat slacking the boiling will change into a seeming Vegetation and the Fire going out it is hard rather than soft yet the mingling of the Natures is known by the colours and drawing to Calcination Therefore thy first Operation is to dry up thy superfluous watrish moisture not evaporating it but congealing it on the Body Think not then as some of the envious Sophistically write that the more you put of your Water the sooner you dissolve and congeal the slower No verily your Calcination is but the medium of true Solution which is trust me not total nor proper till after Putrefaction I should never have told thee this Mystery had not the love of my Neighbour compelled me That opening of the Body which is before is but an opening of its pores which lets our Water in and then after death and resurrection the Mercury of Sol is visible to the eye which before was but distinguishable by its effect Behold how Ice to Water doth relent And so it must for Water it was before Right so again our Water to Earth is went And Water thereby congeal'd for evermore For after all Philosophers that ere were bore Each Metal once was Water Mineral Therefore with Water they turn to Water all SO then our Body hath moisture in it self but this moisture is sealed as Water when frozen by the Cold. But when the pores of the Body are by our Water opened and its central Fire set at liberty this internal Fire of Nature makes the Body to become no Body but a very Spirit In this same Operation the Spirit is congealed for the Body hath in it more virtue then its two Sociats that is than the Soul and Spirit This is the action and re-action of our Body and its Water for our Body is in its occulto Mercury and our Mercury is in its occulto Sol therefore they embrace each other because of the nearness of their Natures and so the Body hath its profundity discovered and the Water its altitude and both together are glorified in one Spiritual Body together according to Noble Hermes Vis ejus est integra si versa fuerit in terram But thou canst never have this excellent fixity till the fixed have attained its volatility In which Water of kind occasionate Of qualities been repugnance and diversity Things into things must therefore be Rotate Vntil that Trinity be brought to perfect Vnity THis Water into which our Bodies are first liquefied is not properly Water but modo quodam as we may say in the Fire During the predomination of the Woman all appears in a moist posture and so will do most part of the first 50 days yet this is a gross moisture and by consequence the more fit for Putrefaction in which gross Humidity all the Elements are in a confusion not the Elements of the great World but our Mineral
to their station pleasant to the Philosopher to behold Of this Separation I find a like figure thus spoken So out of our Stone precious if thou be witty Oyl incombustible and Water thou shalt draw And thereabout thou needest not at the Coles to blow THese Philosophical Operations some have had the fancy to compare with some passages of Scripture but I had rather bound Philosophy within its own Pale and not allegorize the Holy Scripture thereto where Philosophy is not understood there To the thing in hand by continual decoction our Work will shew as in Circulation a real change of the ascending Humidity the first will be white and so continue a long time which is called Water or Phlegm and after it the Water will be coloured and ascend so on the sides of the Vessel which is called Oyl and this Oyl is not combustible for it is the true Sulphur of Gold and therefore as permanent as the Mercury Yet be not mistaken nor do not imagine that because we speak of incombustible Oyl that our Work is to be performed with the Fire of a Wind Oven or of Bellows as some foolishly imagine to burn up what is combustible until the very incombustible Oyl be left for all our volatile subject is turned into incombustible fixity with a moderate decoction in our secret Athanor whose heat in its highest vigoration is but very obscurely red hardly perceptible and in its lowest degree is not full half so strong or half at the most Do this with heat easie and nourishing First with moist Fire and after that with dry The Flegm with patience out-drawing And after that the other Natures wittily Dry up thine Earth until it be thirsty By Calcination else labourest thou in vain And then make it drink up the moisture again THis is a heat which is friendly to the Bodies for it causeth the Spirit to ascend and yet suffers it to return and by reason of its ascending and returning the Matter below stands continually moist and boileth with a perpetual motion and exhalation which ascends and returns day and night every hour and minute without intermission This moist Air or liquid form at bottom with Ebullition and sending forth a spiritual smoak or Vapour in which saith Artephius the whole Mastery consists continues about six weeks or thereabouts and then the boiling will turn to a Pitchy swelling and puffing up like Leavened Dough and from that time the Compound shall grow dryer and dryer coming at length to Pitch-black Atoms or Powder impalpable and the fumes shall cease for six weeks Be patient therefore in decoction and wait with a great deal of confidence until thou seest thy Water which at first ascends white and flegmatick to begin to change colour and the Exhalations to arise discoloured within the Glass Then continue your decoction till the Cloud which is conceived be brought forth for in this Operation be sure that the Seeds begin to mingle and will give you a sign of the beginning of the Conjunction of Natures and that is the gilding of the Glass about the sides within the Concave as if it were overspread with leaves of pure Gold Continue still your decoction till the Earth at the bottom begin to appear and the moisture of the Compound begin to be terminated in Diâ—ess in colour Black which is a sure sign of your right progress and without which you can never attain the Mastery Remember that in this Calcination thou hast a portion of Water in the upper part of thy Vessel which did not descend and in the time of the ceasing of the fumes the Body grows very dry even to Calcination which when it is intirely perfected the Water is as it were by a Magnetical virtue drawn down and then follows a second Liquefaction Separation thus must thou oftentimes make Thy Waters dividing into parts two So that the subtle from the gross thou take Till the Earth remain below in colours bloe That Earth is fixed to abide all woe The other part is spiritual and flying But thou must turn them all into one thing BUt to return to our Work of Sublimation which is as was touched before the Key of the whole Work by which Separation is made uncessantly each day and hour Thus are the Waters divided from the Waters that is the Waters above from them which are below for part of the Water ascends up like a fume and congeals and runs down the sides of the Glass in drops like veins and part remains still below with the Body and with it boils visibly and that uncessantly By this Work thou hast the subtle or thin parts of the Body and the thin parts of the Water ascend and mingle and the gross part of the Body and the gross part of the Water mixt below the one by subliming together and the other by boiling together thus is thy Body below compounded of two even the most fixed parts of Sol with the grosser parts of Lunaria and thy Water of two parts the Soul of Sol and the Spirit of Lunaria which is the true mystical ground of Fixation Thus by subliming in a continual Vapour whatever is Spiritual and Heavenly both in the Water and in the Body lightly ascending and in the upper part of the Glass taking the nature of a Spirit what is more gross earthy and corporeal will in the bottom take the nature of a Body whose colour the Soul being separated will be as Black as Pitch This Body is a middle substance between the Body and the Water a Limus a new Body or Adamica terra a medium between fixed and not fixed it is not so fixed as to be equal to Sol nor yet so volatile as the Mercury but it is sufficiently fixed to endure a Fire requisite for this Work and to suffer all the pain and woe of this our Purgatory in which it abides six weeks without fumes or vapour But as for the Spirit that is a tender thing nor is it able to endure the Fire but flys from it and abides in the uppermost part of the Glass only so long as the fumes arise the ascending do still meet with them which are above till at last making over great drops they fall down and when the fumes cease as much of the Spirit as the Concave of the Glass will hold without running down stays above until intire Calcination be perfected and then they are drawn down by a Magnetical virtue So that here is all the mystery of the proportion of the Glass to the Matter namely that it be so big and no bigger as in its Concave will hold up a competent quantity of Water after Calcination to water the dry pores while the Body below rots into Atoms Then shall you bring back the Water upon the Earth and circulate again so long till there be a total joyning till the Spirit become the Body and the Body become the Spirit and all be made true Fire or Tincture of which Conjunction
this true Separation is the cause and without it it cannot be made Then Oyl and Water with Water shall distill And through her help receive moving Keep well these two that thou not spill Thy Work for want of due closing And make thy Stopple of Glass melting The top of thy Vessel together with it Then Philosopher lick it is up shit IN this second Circulation which is after Conjunction there shall be no more the Body below and the Spirit above but all shall be one and the Body which is the Sulphur shall always follow the Spirit on the Fire wherever it flys The occasional cause of all this is our first Water which though vile is therefore to be much valued for it is very precious through the virtue of which it comes to pass that our Earth yields a Water and causeth it to fly with the Spirit aloft and is the Soul of our Sol which at length doth allure the said Spirit and Body to union which else would never be and then the Body beyond its own nature is lifted up moving uncessantly with the Spirit and Soul upon the Fire for all now are made one inseparably and this is called the sealing the Mother in the belly of the Infant which she bore that is the Earth below is so united to the Water that arose from it that in this Operation after this true Conjunction they are never more divided but are together sublimed and descend continually moving and altering continually until perfect Complement Now for as much as all the Mastery consists in Vapour which are called the great Winds which are in the Vessel at the forming of this our Embrio therefore great care must be had lest the Spirits exhale Which they will do without the Glass have a strong guard for first they are subtle nor that only but ascend with a great impetus by reason of our Fire which must cause the inferiora ebullire moveri continuò inferiora circulari quolibet momento and thirdly in Putrefaction the Body and Spirits have a most subtle odour which also must be retained For preventing of all thou shalt have thy Stopple as firm as any part of thy Glass which let it be strong as is said and the neck long and strong and let the neck be melted up with a Lamp or with Coals and closed well without much wringing which makes the Glass brittle but being nipt up and after that staying in the same heat turning it to and fro in the clear heat the Glass will come to as exactly close and smooth a superficies as in any other place This is the true and sure way which Philosophers have secured their Glasses by Let it cool by degrees and be very wary that it get no crack in cooling which if it do though never so little you must not connive at it lest the winds within cause it there to burst as being a weak defective place The Water wherewith thou mayst revive thy Stone Look thou distill before thou work with it Oftentimes by it self alone And by this sight thou shalt wit From feculent faeces when it is quit For some men can with Saturn it multiply And such like substance which we defie THus thou seest how our Work must be ordered in reference to its Regimen but the main matter is our Water Which Water as saith Artephius is the Vinegar of Mountains and it is the only Instrument for our Work its Preparation consists in Cohobation which we will discover In my little Treatise called Introitus Apertus and in my other Tractate called Ars Metallorum Metamorphoseâ—s I speak as much of it as a man can speak without giving a Receipt but to the Ingenious what there is written is far better than any Receipt This I say that it must first be cohobated in a very wonderful way for it is such a Cohobation that hath not its like in the World and for several times to a determinate number and after it may and ought to be distilled per se without addition again and again that thou mayst have the Water clean from any Exotical mixture When it ascends like to the Pearled dew thou mayst then know that it is sufficiently pure which is not till all the filthiness be cast from the centre and wash'd from the superficies Thy Water then hath so excellent a Pontick faculty that it will dissolve Jupiter Saturn or Venus into Mercury and Sulphur for it commands Metals as their true Water Mineral which no Mercury in the World is but our Mercury nor can be for Reasons known to the Adepti which if I should give there would be none almost so stupid but would easily apprehend them for they are most demonstrable This only I at present say of this Mercury that it is the Mother of Metals and therefore hath power to reduce them by dividing their principles of Sulphur and Mercury but we count it a loss to imploy our Mercury to such such sordid uses for we spoil the goodness of it hereby Gold only is drowned in it that is it is reduced without division of parts but though the Sulphur and Mercury be for a time distinct yet they will joyn with the Water and together and so remain perpetually which other Metals in their dissolution will not for their Sulphurs being not perfect are rejected to the superficies and never are received to union again for they are Heterogeneous Distill it therefore till it be clean And thin like Water as it should be Like Heaven in colour bright and sheene Keeping both figure and ponderosity There with did Hermes moisten his Tree In his Glass that he made it to grow upright With Flowers discoloured beautiful to sight SO then to return to what we digressed a little from thy Water must be so long distilled until it be very clean for this saith the Philosopher is thy first work to make clean thy Mercury and then into clean Mercury to put clean Bodies for who can expect a pure Generation from that which is unclean The next property of thy Water is that it must be thin even as thin as any other Mercury for if the external proportion be corrupted it is an evident sign that the inward nature is confused It must also be of a very bright colour even like to fine burnished Silver as saith Artephius Hence saith a certain Philosopher that our Water to sight is like to a Coelestial Body Our Water must not be reduced into any limpid Diaphanous liquor as some fondly imagine and as I my self in my time of errours did conceit but it must keep its Mercurial form pure and incorrupted It is also very ponderous so ponderous that it is somewhat more weighty then any other Mercury in the World This is the only one Mercury and there is none in the whole World besides it which can do our Work with this Hermes did moisten his Body and made it to rot and putrefie By means of this Water
enter another Yea and beyond this it may be exalted beyond the nature of man yea and of any tangible Body to become a most radiant perpetual Light which I have seen though not my self actually made All this is done by the Divine virtue of our Water which is to be prepared as is said by Cohobation and Distillation for our Water is a living Water and not corrosive as many do mis-interpret our Books These then are the circumstantial qualities of our Water it is pure clean and very bright it is quick and very fluent without Humectation it is the only profitable subject that we can choose for this Art and whatever can be taken in hand in the World besides this is but fallacious It is a marvellous thing in kind And without it can nothing be done Therefore did Hermes call it his Wind For it is up-flying from Sun and Moon And maketh our Stone to fly with it soon Reviving the dead and giving life To Sun and Moon Husband and Wife IT is of a wonderful Composition yea so wonderful that if thou shouldst know it by relation only thou couldst not believe it Study therefore only to know it for it is the very hinge on which turns all perfection it is that which the Wise men never revealed but only in Figures and Metaphors Some have called it their sharp Vinegar because of its dissolvent quality others have called it a Bird a Goose a Phesant and many such names they have given it But because it ariseth in the form of a Wind or Vapour the Philosophers have called it their Vapour their Smoak and their Wind and for this cause command that the Porter keep diligent watch that it fly not away or exhale for it would spoil the Work This Water then flyeth the more Spiritual part of it and the Corporal part remaineth below in the form of an Humidity which doth bubble and boil continually and the smoak in the Head condenseth and returneth in drops upon the Body and by this means the Body of Sol which is most fixed to the astonishment of Nature is made volatile and sends out in the Exhalation of the Water its subtle fiery Soul Thus the dead Body hath infused into it a Spirit of life and begins to be endowed with a living Soul which moves aloft with the Spirit and returns with the same till the Body be wholly renewed And by this means the Body of the Sun retaining the more Corporeal part of the Water at the bottom they boil together and enter one another and so both by decoction become more and more Corporal and make together one Hermaphroditical Body of which the more fixed parts of the Sun and the grosser parts of the Water are the Component principals So that being thus mixed the more Corporal parts below and the more Spiritual parts in Sublimation the Bodily part is Husband and Wife to it self for all Conception is made at the bottom of the Vessel Which if they were not by craft made quick And their fatness with Water drawn out And so the thin dissevered from the thick Thou shouldest never bring this Work about If thou wilt therefore speed without doubt Raise up the Birds out of their Nest And after bring them again to rest THese Bodies do send forth a thin subtle fume which may be compared to their breath and the returning of it and fuming continually may be likened to the breathing in and out of Air for saith Artephius all things live by Air and so our Stone it is inspired by the Air which Air is the fume which ascends continually which partakes of both Natures as well as the Body below doth Also this makes that below to boil and swell continually which it would not do did not the Earth retain the moisture and the Sublimation carries with it the subtilest part or Soul of the Body which easily appears by its changing of colours for whatever coloureth is of Sulphur which is unctuous and therefore the Sublimation appears pinguous the medium of this Extraction is Water because our Water and the Sulphur are Homogeneal Wherefore in this Circulation there are two things to be considered the bottom and the top the bottom is not only the Body of Sol for so it would not stand liquid and flow and boil and bubble as it doth therefore it is certain that the Body retains part of the Water which is more thick which thickness digestion and mixture hath caused which grosser part of the Water is joyned with the Body but not perfectly united The uppermost part is not only from the Water nor yet the most whole of the Water but a certain subtle portion of your first Vinegar which hath in it the most pure part of your Gold which is sublimed with it which both together make a medium of much Firiness So then by reason of the mixture both the uppermost and the subsident part are reduced to a mean which hold one of another therefore our Body at this time and in this Operation is called the Body both of the Sun and Moon and the Vapour contains both the Soul of the Sun and the Spirit of the Mercury Take this for your prey for I have reveal'd what Philosophers upon penalty of an Anathema would never disclose If you have well attended to what I have said I have said enough and if this do not suffice you I know not what will Remember well what I have said if you ever expect success To sum up all therefore in one word for I have been so long that I fear I have been too prolix Remember what you go about and what you work on You take in hand an Earthly Body which you would bring to a Heavenly Tincture This you would effect by Mercury which is the only way or medium in the World First then sublime till by Mercury thou hast brought thy Body to the height of volatility and thou shalt find that in this dissolved Body there will be such a ferment which will recongeal the Spirit Water with Water accord will and ascend And Spirit with Spirit for they be both of one kind Which when they be exalted make to descend So shalt thou unloose that which Nature erst did bind Mercury essential turning into Wind Without which natural and subtle Separation May never be compleat profitable Generation FOr the Body though in its manifesto it be Sulphur congealed and dry yet in its occulto it is Mercury liquid and moist Now the Water which thou mixest with it hath this vertue to open its pores and then the Water of the Body will as naturally agree and ascend with thy Water of Life which thou didst put to it as one Water will joyn with another Now as Sol hath a hidden Spirit so hath our Mercury which is in it invisible for to sight it appears as other Mercury only a little brighter but in effect they differ wonderfully which Spirit will as naturally unite with the Soul
The cause of his life his Sister did slay This made him full sad And grief made him mad Thus soon his strength fell to decay His House and Chamber were so charg'd with heat It made him to faint And fainting fell into a grievous sweat His sweat did so taint The Room With foul persume Which did e'en almost suffocate So feeble he grew He could not eschew But dung'd and piss'd there where he sate At length with sorrows many he expires Full glad of the change That death at last should answer his desires But what is most strange When dead That it might be said How dearly he his Sister did love Their Corps did unite That they in despight Of Fire would not asunder move And thus together they contumulate A rotting did lye Passing through dismal Purgatories Gate Wherein they did fry So long Vntil among The Saints for purity they might pass Their sins were no more To be found on score They then were clear as Crystal Glass A Spirit then of life from Heaven came In their Bodies dead Which now united of renowned fame To Heaven were led Where they Abode for aye Enjoying pleasures for evermore To death not subject Were now the object Of wonder for th' had Riches store AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Fourth Gate Which is CONJUNCTION The Fourth Gate Opened Which is CONJUNCTION After the Chapter of Natural Separation By which the Elements of our Stone dissevered be The Chapter here followeth of secret Conjunction Which Natures repugnant joyneth to perfect unity And so them knitteth that none from others may flee When they by the Fire shall be examinate They be together so surely conjungate HAving run through the Chapter of Separation with a plain stile we shall now come to the life of all which is Conjunction for we seek not a thing which may be capable of Separation but which may abide in all tryals the parts being impossible to be separated one from another for so our Tincture ought to be or else it will be wholly unprofitable for our purpose For Separation is but the middle motion by which we pass from the unary simplicity of Gold to the millenary plusquam perfection of our Stone before which can be attained there must be a loosing of the Compages of the Body that so the Spiritual Fire or Tincture may be set loose which being loosed will certainly multiply it self with that by which it was dissolved with which it is necessary that it should Radically be mixed and united so as that both the dissolvent and the dissolved may make one together This then is the benefit of our Water that it doth not only reduce open and mollifie our Body and cause it to send out its Seed but it is actually recongealed with the fermental virtue of this seminal influence of Gold that it becomes together with the Body one new Body perpetually united So that although our Water be volatile when it is first taken yet notwithstanding after it hath first made the Body no Body but a Spirit in which spiritualizing the Virtue or Tincture is augmented after that the Body by Congelation makes this no Spirit but a Body by which the fixity is advanced mightily so that both will endure all Fire For it is not only an apparent union that is made but real so real that the Spirit and the Body pass one into another penetrating each others dimensions the Spirit being one with the Body and the Body being the Spirit the Form swallowing up the Matter in unity so that all becomes really Tincture And therefore Philosophers give this definition Saying this Conjunction is nothing else But of dissevered qualities a Copulation Or of principles a Coequation as others tells But some men with Mercury that Apothecaries sells Meddleth Bodies that cannot divide Their Matter and therefore they slip aside OF this Operation Philosophers make a great Mystery and speak of it very hiddenly in respect to the terminus of it which they call the hour of the Stones Nativity in which they say many marvels will appear for all the colours that can be invented in the World will be then apparent Some say their Conjunction is our reconciliation of Contraries a making friendship between Enemies because in that time the volatile is still ascending and descending upon the fixt this is by them ascribed to Contrariety Others measuring all sublunary things by the rules of Symmetry and Ametry do ascribe this Operation which they for similitude sake compare to a Duel to the over-prevailing of one principles qualities above the qualities of the other and therefore they define Auriety to be the Anaticalness of the four Elements in mixture each in his quality acting proportionable to the resistance of its contrary vice versa But this is but an Entanglement in which the Chymists stumble upon School Academical Principles I had rather embrace their Secret as for Operation but for Philosophy jump with that noble Bruxellian whose promised Treatises when the World shall enjoy I suppose they will be the profoundest piece of Philosophy that ever was revealed to the World which I admire not so much for his Experiments of none of which I am ignorant nor Paracelsus to boot many yea most of which are far harder though sooner wrought than the Elixir and the Alchahest is a hundred times more difficult but what I most honour in that noble Naturalist is that he did search out the Occulta Naturae more accurately then ever any did in the World So that setting aside the skill of this Mastery of which I cannot find any footsteps in what of his is extant I am confident he was without flattery Natures Privy-Counsellor and for Philosophical verity might have commanded this Secret but God doth not reveal all to all men yet who knows what he may live to be Master of in this point too This I speak not to flatter him who besides what is evident to the whole World in his Writings have no other character of him and to him I am like to remain a perpetual Stranger yet could as heartily desire his acquaintance as any mans I know in the World and if the Fates prevent not mine intentions by mine or his death I shall endeavour familiarity with him But this by the way To return whence I digressed our final secret is first to unite the Spirit and Soul of our dissolving Water that by the mediation of the Soul the Spirit and Body may be conjoyned and then after several Sublimations and Precipitations made for that end that the Body may be spiritualized and the Spirit corporalized so fix together the Soul Body and Spirit the flying and the fixt that all the Elements to use Philosophers terms may acquiesce and rest in this Nest of Earth in which all the virtue of the superiours and inferiours is contained both in power and act From what hath been said may appear the strong passive delusion that hath taken many men of our Age and formerly
heat then believe Vntil bright and shining in whiteness be thy Stone Then mayst thou open thy Glass anon And feed thy Child which is ybore With Milk and Meat aye more and more THus shalt thou keep them for the space of 150 days in which time thou shalt see a gallant Game played the Earth shall be overflown with Waters the two great Lights eclipsed the Heavens be clouded the Air darkned and all things in disorder and confusion then shall the Earth be turned into a Limus and the Water by decoction continual shall be dryed up and by moderate showrs and dews shall be moistned and by continual washing shall be cleansed then through the good pleasure of God the day-light shall spring forth and what was before dark shall now become clear and what was black of the blackest shall now be made very white This when thou shalt see rejoyce for our King is now coming from the East triumphing he hath conquered death and now is made immortal strengthen then your Fire a little prudently and with discretion continue it till such time as your Stone become white and very clear and bright sparkling like to a Sword new slipped and by driness be reduced into a Powder impalpable Now art thou come to the end of the white and thou hast a Stone perfect though this be but of small virtue yet thou mayst now take it out and use it either by Fermentation or Cibation or Imbibition or Multiplication and make it fit for projection so that if thou hast but an ounce thou mayst soon have a thousand For now both moist and dry is so contemperate That of the Water Earth hath received impression Which never after that asunder may be separate And right so Water to the Earth hath given ingression That both together to dwell have made profession And Water of the Earth hath purchased a retentive They four made one never more to strive NOw thou hast an intimate union between the moist and the dry that one is passed into another and of two there is a third made which is a Neuter from both and yet partakes of both and these two Natures that did seem so opposite are now conspired together to make one substance incorruptible For the Water which is a Spirit hath given such an impression to the Earth that it which was corporal and dry and uncapable of communicating Tincture is by it become penetrative so that it can in the very twinkling of an eye pass to the very Centre upon an imperfect Metal on which it is project as I have oft with an unspeakable content observed For it is not in our union of this Sulphur to its Mercury as it is with the union of Water to Earth though we make such comparisons for though we call our Sulphur Earth and our Mercury Water yet our Mercury will not in the Examen of the Fire flow away as Water will exhale from Loam how exquisitely soever it be contempered with it So then our Body which by our Art is renewed is advanced into the order of Spirits or Bodies glorified which though they have Bodies yet they are not subject to those Laws of gross corporeity which is in Bodies not regenerate therefore our Stone is a System of Wonders ponderous fixt and exquisitely compact and yet as penetrative as hot Oyl is into soaking Paper So that it is not now as it was at first beginning of Operation when the one was above the other below compared to two Dragons or Birds the one winged the other without wings but now both are capable to resist the Fire in its utmost fury Now hath the Water received a fermental impression from the Earth or Sulphur so that it is now made Sulphur with Sulphur as the other is made by the Water life with life This is the highest perfection which any sublunary Body can be brought to by which we know that God is one for God is perfection to which when ever any creature arrives in its kind it rejoyceth in unity in which is no division or alterity but peace and rest without contention Thus in two things all our intents do hing In moist and dry which be contraries two In dry that it the moist to fixing bring In moist that it give Liquefaction to the Earth also WHatever then we seem to say or write to the contrary all our intentional Secret consists only in two things whatever we seem to advise more is but only to intangle the unwary Our first Secret is to know our true Sulphur which many do allegoâ—ize to all the absurdities in the World This is Gold which is to be bought pure almost in any place The next is to know our Mercury which is not common but artificial drawn from three heads by the mediation of one thing which makes the two which are dry and Sulphurous to unite with one which is moist and Mercurial These are different in their qualities which difference our decoction so reconciles as to make of them sweet Harmony For the Sulphur in whose increase of virtue consists our final intent it doth give consistence to the Water yet so as that it doth not part with it from it self but with its Fermentative virtue it doth so infuse it that of a moist Spirit tender and volatile it becomes a fixt dry Fire-abiding substance But first of all the Water doth mollifie the Body and soak into it and search out its profundity for the Sun teyneth not till it teyned be for hard and dry Bodies cannot enter so as to transmute till such time as themselves be first Radically entred and changed from colour to colour till they come to perfection then it is fluid and penetrative for it will enter to the root of the imperfect and cause it to lose its imperfection and become perfect flowing upon it like Wax when it is heated by the Fire Then of them thus a temperament may forth go A temperament not so thick as the Body is Neither so thin as Water withouten miss BEtween the dry Body and the fluid Water we make a temperament which is called Impastation for it is made like unto Paste and Inceration for it brings it to the temper of Wax but most properly Amalgamation or gross Conjunction which is a middle consistence between Mercury and a Metal not so hard as the one for it may with a Knife or ones Finger be spread to and fro easily nor yet is it so currant as Mercury for no Mercury will run out of it though it be inclined one way or other I need say no more for there is hardly any vulgar Chymist who is not acquainted with the notion of an Amalgama and knows what temper that is when it will spread like Butter and yet laid declining will let nothing run from it which is thinner then the whole Compound for in a thin Amalgama the Mercury if it be declined will run to the declining side like Hydropical intercutis Water But ours is
according to Flammel seeks to get the Domination for many months that is to say for three months or thereabouts which according to our Author is ninety days and nights to whom many other Authors agree This time may be longer or shorter according to the better or worse preparation of the Matter and the Regimen of the Fire But when thou hast set thy Glass once in the first place be sure that thou give a due yet temperate heat govern it so as that between the Waters above and the Flouds beneath the Earth may liquefie then continue your decoction and the Vessel shall be beclouded and thy Compound shall with constant Circulation become black This colour shall be a sign unto you that you have not run your course in vain this is the first Gate into which and through which you must enter now know for certain that thy Seeds begin to rot and engender In this Putrefaction there is life for this Operation is nothing else but an extracting of Natures from their profundity or root this is that which will make thy fixt Body to become a volatile Spirit for Putrefaction doth loose the bands of all the Elements Which after many colours thou mayst bring To perfect whiteness by patience easily And so the Seed in his nature shall multiply SO soon then as thou shalt have blackness compleat know for certain that in this blackness whiteness is really hidden so really as a living Plant in its Seed But before thou attain to this whiteness thou mayst have patience and pass through many middle changable colours which will be no small chearing to the Work-man who must wait with a great deal of Longanimity until the Earth and Heaven be united Then shall thy Elements perfectly accord and one colour shall cover thy new-married Soul and Body and that will be like to the most pure Lilly or sublimed Salt sparkling like to a new-slipped Sword in the Sun beams In this whiteness is the Multiplicative virtue exalted and made apparent in its first degree by this white Soul thou mayst turn either Mercury or Saturn or Jupiter or Venus or Mars into most pure refined Silver in a short time and that not Sophistically to apparency but in reality inwardly and outwardly to abide all Essays Make each the other to halâ—e and kiss And like as Children play them up and down And when their Shirts are filled with Piss Then let the Woman to wash be bown Which oft for faintness will fall in a swoâ—â— And die at last with her Children all And go to Purgatory to wash their filth Original BUt in thy first Operation as is said before first look for blackness which will appear in the first Regimen by continual decoction which blackness shall be an Indicium to you that your two Natures do begin now to imbrace and kiss one another For so soon as they feel the Fire they flow together within the Vessel and boyl by continuance of decoction visibly and the tender Nature not enduring the heat flyeth aloft and being inclosed so that it cannot get out it congeals in drops in the head of the Vessel and about the sides and again returns to its Body which may well be called Childrens play running round as it were in a Circular motion This play continues so long till the Water begins to leave its thicker parts with the thicker parts of the Body which in the bottom of the Vessel is called Vrina puerorum and the thinner parts of the Water mixed with the thinner parts of the Body which is dissolved in it flies still and circulates until it have made a more full dissolution of the Body which here by the odour of its Sulphur doth penetrate the Spirit and Soul and makes them faint at last and remain as it were breathless in the bottom of the Glass Then shall the Body be destroyed and both the Water and it rot into small Atoms which will lie without motion growing every day more and more black until at length Cimmerian darkness cover the whole Sky This is called the North Latitude of our Stone and it is Winter cold and dirty here are the Elements brought to rest for a time until a Generation be made in the bottom of the Glass when through the will and power of God a clean thing shall be brought out of this uncleanness and black venenosity When they be there by little little increase Their pains with heat aye more and more The Fire from them let never cease And see that thy Furnace be surely apt therefore Which wise men call an Athanor Concerning heat required most temperately By which thy Matter doth kindly putrefie NOw thy Bath will begin to be a little more heated and stirred up to wash this young King which though noble is yet conceived in a Stable for at this time thou hast the Sulphur of thy dissolved Body let loose which mixing with the Sulphur of the Water doth acuate it exceedingly the one being a natural the other a Fire against Nature both together make an unnatural Fire burning like to the Fire of Hell comparable to nothing but the Alcahest Nor must thou think that this increase of Fire consists in the blowing of the Coal no verily it is a more subtle internal Fire that we have and yet that also must be kept constant and in due order For this cause see that thy Furnace be trusty else thou mayst and wilt fail for though the Fire of Coals do not effect any thing yet it excites and the Water though it be of a wonderfull nature yet it acts no farther then it is stirred up and intermission in this Work when it is once begun will in the end prove fatal extinction Therefore the Wise men have named the Furnace in which they work their Secrets an Athanor that is Immortal shewing that from the beginning to the end the Fire must not go out for the extinction of it destroys the Work and as death includes all sicknesses which are steps to it so an Immortal Furnace or Athanor must not only preserve the Fire from going out but also from exorbitancy either on one hand or other for whatever swerves from the temperate mean hinders the kind operation of the Matter which is Putrefaction by which means the Work is notably retarded and weakned and by continuance of any extremity it will be destroyed but with its due heat it doth putrefie kindly Of this principle speaketh sapient Guido And saith by rotting dyeth the Compound corporal And then after Morien and others moe Vp riseth again regenerate simple and spiritual And were not heat and moisture continual Sperm in the Womb might have none abiding And so there should no fruit thereof up spring THis according to the intention of all Philosophers Guido Turba Arnaldus and others but especially noble Trevisan whom I chiefly honour so Flammel Artephius Morien and all Philosophers testifie thus much namely that the heat must be so adequated to the
pass from darkness of Purgatory to light Of Paradise in whiteness Elixir of great might THis is a noble step from Hell to Heaven from the bottom of the Grave to the top of Power and Glory from obscurity in blackness to resplendent whiteness from the height of venenosity to the height of Medicine Oh Nature how dost thou alter things into things casting down the high and mighty and again exalting them being base and lowly Oh Death how art thou vanquished when thy Prisoners are taken from thee and carried to a state and place of Immortality This is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes And that thou mayst the rather to Putrefaction Win this example thou take c. The heart of an Oak which hath of Water continual infusion For though it in Water lay an hundred years and more Yet shouldest thou find it sound as ever it was before O Happy Gate of blackness which art the passage to this so glorious a change study therefore whoever applyest thy self to this Art only to know this Secret for know this and know all and contrarywise be ignorant of this and be ignorant of all Therefore if that possible thou mayst attain the depth of this Mystery I shall endeavour to unfold it to thy capacity by similitudes and examples Thou knowest that if a solid piece of Wood lie in water perpetually it will tire the patience of the most patient expecter to see it rot for it will abide many Generations and in the end be as sound as when it was first laid in Yea some contend that in our days Pine-Trees are dug up in their intire proportion which have been buried ever since the Floud being found in such places in which no Histories ever mentioned that such Trees grew and so deep under ground as it is almost incredible which certainly have layn at least many hundred years and yet the Wood as sound as any other Tree of that sort which hath not been cut down above a year or two such is the force of constant Hume-faction to prevent the ordinary corruption of Timber But and thou keep it sometimes wet and sometimes dry As thou mayst see in Timber And so even likewise c. Sometimes our Tree must with the Sun be brent BUt contrarywise Timber which is kept wet sometimes and dry sometimes as usually the foundations of Timber Houses are if not secured by the Masons Art it would tire the Householders patience to see how soon such Timber will rot and molder away and become fit for nothing which is a thing so well known that the experience of every Rustick almost can teach it him So resolve our Stone must be used if thou intend to have it putrefie kindly our Wheel for Putrefaction must go round in a constant Elevation or Extraction of the Water or Humidity from the Body by which Operation our Man the Sun is helped in his acting and this Water must as constantly return to the Earth to moisten it by which the Woman the Moon is helped in her acting And then with Water we must it keel That so to rotting we may bring it wee l BEtween these two various Operations which one and the same Fire produceth our Body is both heated and cooled his sweat is drawn forth and returned upon him again by the which means it is triturated ground softned and made weak even unto death and dying it rots and putrefies changing colours from one into another until at the length it becomes black as Ink or Pitch which is our Toad our Crow our Tomb filled with rottenness our Golgotha or place of dead bones our Terra foliata or Earth of Leaves For now in wet c. To be shall cause it soon to putrefie And so shall thou bring to rotting thy Gold Intreat thy Bodies c. And in thy putrefying with heat be not too swift Lest in the Ashes thou seek after thy thrift OUr Operation then saith Morien is nothing else but extracting Water from the Earth and returning it again upon the Earth so long and so often till the Earth putrefie for by elevation of the moisture the Body is heated and dried and by returning it again it is cooled and moistned by the continuation of which successive Operations it is brought to corrupt and rot to lose its form and for a season to remain as dead This is the true intention and manner of our working and there is no other manner of working that can be invented that can give thee the effect of this our Operation for this is the true way and means by which thy Body of Gold will be destroyed and no other way profitable for our Art Proceed therefore as I have directed thee and swerve not either to the right hand or to the left Take this Body which I have shewed thee and joyn it with the Spirit which is proper to it which the Wise men have called their Venus or Goddess of Love and circulate these two Natures one upon the other until the one have conceived by the other But beware you urge not the Spirit too much but remember that he is a volatile substance and if he be over-provoked he will certainly break the Vessel and fly and leave thee the ruines of thy Glass for a recompence of thy over-speedy rashness which trust me will make thee fetch a deep Philosophical sigh and say when it is too late I would I had been content to wait Natures time Let the Fire then be such in which thy Spirit may be so stirred up as to return to its Body in the Glass and not so irritated as to break the Vessel and return to the Ashes or Sand of the Nest or stick about the sides of the Cover of your Nest or else fly about in the Room wherein the Artist is and lodge in his Head and so make it far more unconstant then it was before by adding to his rash giddiness a Paralytical shaking Therefore the Water out of the Earth thou draw And make the Soul therewith for to ascend Then down again into the Earth it throw That they oft-times so ascend and descend PRoceed therefore not as a Fool but as a Wise man make the Water of thy Compound to arise and circulate so long and often until the Soul that is to say the most subtle virtue of the Body arise with it circulating with the Spirit in manner of a fiery form by which both the Spirit and Body are enforced to change their colour and complexion for it is this Soul of the dissolved Bodies which is the subject of Wonders it is the life and therefore quickens the dead it is the Vegetative Soul and therefore it makes the dead and sealed Bodies which in their own Nature are barren to fructifie exceedingly Therefore if this return unto the Earth from which it first took its flight it will make it for to fructifie and to increase in Tincture and in the Earth it self will multiply
which shall over-go The spotted Panther the Lyon green the Crow's Bill blew as Lead These shall appear before the perfect White and many other moe Colours And after the perfect white gray and false Citrine also And after these then shall appear the bloody red invariable Then hast thou a Medicine of the third order of his own kind multiplicable IX Thou must divide thy white Elixir into parts Two Before thou Rubifie and into Glasses Two let them be done If thou wilt have the Elixirs for Sun and Moon so do With Mercury then them multiply unto great quantity soon And if thou hadst not at the beginning enough to fill a Spoon Yet thou mayst them so multiply both the White and the Red That if thou liv'st a Thousand Years they will stand thee in stead X. Have thou recourse unto thy Wheel therefore I counsel thee And study him well to know in each Chapter truly Meddle with no Fantastical Multiplyers but let them be Which will thee flatter and falsly say they are cunning in Philosophy Do as I bid thee then dissolve those foresaid Bases wittily And turn them into perfect Oyls with our true Water ardent By Circulation that must be done according to our intent XI These Oyls will six crude Mercury and convert Bodies all Into perfect Sol and Lune when thou shalt make Projection That Oyly Substance pure fixt Reymond Lully did call His Basilisk of which he never made so plain detection Pray for me to God that I may be one of his Election And that he will for one of his at Dooms-day me ken And grant me in his Bliss to Reign with him for ever Amen A Breviary of Alchemy OR A COMMENTARY UPON Sir GEORGE RIPLEY'S RECAPITULATION BEING A Paraphrastical Epitome of his XII Gates Stanza I. Position I. That the Art is most certainly true WHich wittily conceiv'd thou mayest not Work in vain Whence observe the Truth and Certainty of the Art so Father Hermes It is true saith he without falshood certain and most true That which is above is like that which is beneath and that which is beneath is like that which is above to bring about the Miracles of one thing So Trevisan Flammel Dionys Zachary and others affirm upon their own Experience And so this our Author in his Epistle to King Edward his Conclusion of the Admonition concerning erroneous Experiments and other places of these his Twelve Gates that I need not enlarge on this Subject Stanza II. Position II. Our Work is made of Three Principles WHere the Red Man and the White Woman are made one c. Thence it is evident that our Operations are made of Three Principles yet of one Essence the Red Man the White Wife and the Spirit of Life By the latter the two former are Espoused or made One. This is that which Trevisan calls his One Root and Two Mercurial Substances crude at their taking and extracted out of their Minera's This our Author else-where calls his Trinity and Vnity the Trinity respecting the Substances as they are severall the Vnity respecting their Essence which is intirely Homogenial Therefore it is added that they live in love and rest without repugnancy which could not be were they not Essentially and Radically the same For likeness of Nature is the Cause of Love and Oneness of Essence the true ground of Union among different Substances can only be expected Confusion if not Destruction Position III. Three Substances make only Two Natures Earth and Water EArth and Water equally proportion'd that is best Here it is evident that these Three Substances make up but Two Natures of Earth and Water The Man and Wife are both Bodies or Earths the one fixed and ripe the other Volatile and unripe and by Mixture make a brittle black Hermaphroditical Body or Earth called the Philosophers Lead as Ripley in his Preface expresseth it The White Woman or Famale is otherwise called the Moon by all Philosophers and by this Author in his Doctrine of Proportions One of the Sun and Two of the Moon till altogether like Pap be done Position IV. From equal Pondus of Earth and Water Three of Water to One of the Earth is good but equal is best THen make the Mercury Four to the Sun Two to the Moon c. as it should be in Figure of the Trinity And so we come to take notice of the Doctrine of Proportion between the Earth and Water equal that is best the same saith our Author in his Chapter of Calcination This is the surest and best proportion speaking of equal Pondus of Earth and Water and gives the Reason because Solution will be sooner made viz. The more thy Earth the less thy Water be The sooner and better Solution shalt thou see And here he affirms the same of Calcination which goes before Solution Yet Three of the Water to One of the Earth will do well lest the Tincture should not have room to be sufficiently dilated in the Water and the Body opened by it and this is the Pondus of Roger Bacon which requires a longer time before the quick be kil'd and by consequence the reviving of the dead must be longer in doing For Calcination is nothing else but a killing the moist with the dry till which be done there is no reviving of the dry by the moist but they have one and the same Operation and Period of time for one dies not but the other revives nor doth the Dragon die but with its Sister Position V. The White Wife in the first Conjunction is to be Three to One of the Red Man THree of the Wife and one of the Man thou take c. From the Pondus between the Earth and Water come we to view the Proportion between the Man and his Wife Here the Pondus is laid down Three to One and so there are Four parts of Earth to Four of Water or more until Twelve that is Three of Water to One of the Earth This also is clear from the Chapter of Conjunction where the Woman is allow'd 15 Veins to 5 of the Man as to the Act of their Foecundity which is interpreted of the first Conjunction by himself that the Man must have but 3 of Water and his Wife 9 which is 12 of Water to 4 of the Earth by which it is evident that the Woman is to exceed her Husband in a three-fold Proportion Or Two to One after Reymund Or Four to One according to Alanus but Three to One is best However in Reymund's Doctrine of Proportions cited by our Author in his Gate of Calcination One of the Sun is joyn'd with Two of the Moon which make Three of the Body and to these are added Four of Mercury which is One more of the Spiritual than of the Corporal part and this the Author compares to Trinity and Vnity both are good Yea and Alanus prescribes Four parts to One which may be done but Three to One is best and equal Pondus
of Spirit and Life for compleating of the Marriage between this Royal Pair the Sun the Husband and the Moon the Wife Of this speaks this Author in his Gate of Solution One in Gender they be but in Number not so The Father is the Sun and the Moon the Mother the Mover is Mercury This Compound according to its various Considerations hath many Relations and as many Denominations Sun and Moon Man and Wife Body Soul and Spirit Earth and Water Sister and Brother Mother and Son with many others but its Proper Name is Magnesia Quest What is the Red Man what his White Wife What the Spirit of Life It may be here questioned what this Red Man is what his White Wife and what the Spirit of Life for that is the only knot in understanding the Writings of Philosophers whose various Expressions and seeming Contradictions herein do obscure the Art wonderfully Yet however they seem to differ in their Writings they mean all one thing if well or rightly understood Answer 1 st What the Red Man is The Red Man betokens the perfect Body of the Sun or his Shadow the Moon For Lune the Body which is one of the Seven is a Male and a perfect Body and fixed only wants a little Digestion and therefore the Red is hid under its visible White as White is hid under the visible Red of Sol Therefore our Author in his Work of Albification saith that the Sun appeareth White and Bright And Trevisan saith our King who is cloathed in Garments of pure Gold after he is once in the Bath appears no more till after one hundred and thirty days and then he appears White and wonderfully bright and shining And an old Philosopher saith Honour our King at his return from the East in Glory and admirable bright whiteness Therefore saith Artefius Our Water is of kin to the perfect Bodies to the Sun and to the Moon but more to the Sun then to the Moon Note this well And in all his Books he joyns the Sun and Moon the perfect Bodies Gold and Silver for the work So doth Ripley and so all Philosophers by which it is evident that either of the perfect Metals or Luminaries with oâ—r Aqua Vitae will compleat the work as Arnold expressly saith in his Questions Answers to Boniface and Jodocus Greverus in his Treatise confirms the same in these words If so be saith he thou be so poor that thou canst not take Gold then take so much Silver yet Gold is the better as being nearer of kin to our Water and Mercury Answer 2. What is the White Wife Secondly The White Wife otherwise called the Moon is a Female it is a Coagulated Mercury but not fixt A spiritual Body fluxible in nature of a Body yet Volatile in nature of a Spirit It is called therefore Mercury of the Philosophers Our Green Lyon Our immature or unripe Gold It is Pontanus's Fire Artephius's middle substance clear like pure Silver which ought to receive the Tinctures of the Sun and Moon his sharp Vineger his Antimonial-Saturnine-Mercurial Argent Vive without which â—aton cannot be whitened of which an old Philosopher saith whiten the red Laton by a white tepid and suffocated Water of which testimony Trâ—visanus affirms that nothing could be said better or clearer This is that which is intimated in the Vision of Arislaus who found a People that were Married yet had no Children because they married two Males together Such are they who mix Sol and Lune both Corporal and fixt together whom the Spirit will never revive because there is not conjugal Love Joyn therefore Gabritius to his beloved Sister Beya which is a tender Damsel and straightway Gabritius will die that is will lose what he was and from that place where he appeared to have lost what he was he shall appear what he was not before Answ 3. What is the Spirit of Life Thirdly The Spirit of Life is Mercury The Mover saith this Author is Mercury with which the Stone is to be multiplyed when it is made And it must be true Mineral Mercury without any forreign mixture as Arnold resolves expressly in his Answer to Boniface And so Ripley saith some can multiply Mercury with Saturn and other substances which we defie Distil it therefore till it be clean c. It moreover must have all the proportions of Mercury its ponderosity otherwise it could not be Metalline its Humidity otherwise the Feminine Sperm would be deficient and its siccity not to wet the hand which it can no sooner lose by Corrosives or otherwise but it straight-way loseth its first Mineral Proportion and so is no longer an Ingredient of our true Tincture Position VI. As the West Latitude is the entrance so in the North is the first alteration PRoceed then forth to the North by obscuration c. Loosing them and altering them c. The Materials being found and mixt according to the Proportions taught before is called the West Latitude because in it the Sun sets and afterwards appears no more in his Red Robes till he first be cloathed with a White glittering Robe and be Crowned with a very bright Oriental Diadem Now the progress into the North is a discovery of the Profundity of the Stone and is compared to the Winter which is in the North chiefly long tedious cold and slabbery so will it be in this Work the Signs are Capricorn Pisces and Aquarius In this there is a retrogradation of Sol into its first matter in which alteration the old Form dies the Matter rots and putrifies and is after renewed in the East This Operation saith Flammel is not perfected in less then Five Months and the Colours of the Compound are dark obscure waterish and at length black like Pitch in which blackness the Body is rotted into Atoms which intire blackness and height of corruption lasts but 2 or 3 days and therefore saith Ripley in his Epistle the third day he shall arise the same saith Dastin in his Rosary where he allows four days for Putrefaction The same saith Efferarius the Monk in his intire Treatise published with Dastin However the whole time of blackness in coming continuing and going away is 150 days although the Sun begins to appear in 130 days if you work aright This I have added for the sake of many who expect black of the blackest in 40 or 50 dayes mistaking Flammel herein who saith the colour must be black of the blackest and like to the colour of the Dragons in 40 days which Dragons were blackish blewish and yellowish which colours shew that the Matter begins to rot into Atoms which rottenness is not perfected in less than 150 days so as to let the Sun appear with its Rays First in a small Circle of Heir of a whitish Citrine which increaseth and changeth hue day by day till whiteness be fully compleated Position VII The East denoting Whiteness is the beginning of the Stones Altitude THence by Colours
which is an Impastation of the body with the Water to the temper of Dough or Leaven which the Water readily doth such affinity there is between the Water and the Body as the Philosopher saith this Water is friendly and pleasant to the metals But over and besides the Water soaks Radically into our Body being circulated upon it according as the Philosopher saith When it s own sweat is returned to the Body it perforates it marvellously Thus the Body drinks in the Water or Juice of Grapes not so much then when they are first mingled but most especially when by decoction it pierceth radically to the very profundity of it and makes it to alter its Form This is the Water which teareth the Bodies and makes them no Bodies but flying Spirits like a Smoak Wind or Fume as Artephius speaketh plentifully This operation is performed in a short while in comparison of Subterraneal operations of Nature which are done in a very long time therefore it is that so many Philosophers say that it is done in a very short time and yet it is not without cause that so many of the Philosophers have complained of the length of this decoction Therefore the same Artephius who had said that this fire of the Water of our Mercury doth that in a short time above ground that Nature was in performing a 1000 years doth in another place say that the tincture doth not come out at once but by little and little each day and hour till after along time the decoction be compleat according to the saying of the Philosopher Boyl boyl and again boyl and accompt not tedious our long decoction So fast SO then this expression here that the Toad doth drink in the Juice of Grapes so fast doth not imply but that this work must have the true time of Nature which is indeed a long time and so is every decoction at least so they will seem to the Artist who attends the fire day by day and yet must wait for the fruit with Patience till the Heaven have showred down upon the Earth the former and latter Rain yet be not out of heart but attend until the compleatment for then a large Harvest will abundantly recompence all thy toyl Till over-charged with the Broth his Bowels all to brast IT follows in the Vision that at length the Toad over-charged with the broth did burst asunder This broth is the same which the fair Medea did prepare and pour upon the two Serpents which did keep the Golden Aples which grew in the hidden Garden of the Virgins Hesperides For the Vinegre of the Philosophers being circulated upon the Body doth engender a substance like unto bloudy Broth and makes Colours of the Rainbow to appear in the ascension and descension upon your Lyon until the Eagles have at length devoured the Lyon and all together being killed with the Carion of the Carcasses become a venemous Toad creeping on the Earth and a Crow swimming in the midst of the dead Sea The Juice of Grapes then which is our Mercury drawn from the Chameleon or Air of our Physical Magnesia and Chalybs Magical being circulated upon our true Terra Lemnia after it is grossly mixed with it by Incorporation and set to our fire to digest doth still enter in and upon our Body and searcheth the profoundity of it and makes the occult to become manifest by continual ascension and descension till all together become a Broth which is a mean substance of dissevered qualities between the Water and the Body till at length the Body burst asunder and be reduced into a Powder like to the Atoms of the Sun black of the blackest and of a viscous matter And after that from poysoned bulk he cast his venom fell THis Reduction of the Body thus in this water ingenders so venomous a Nature that truly in the whole World there is not a ranker Poyson or stink according as Philosophers witness And therefore he is said to cast his fell venom from his poysoned bulk in as much as the exhalations are compared to the Invenomed Fume of Dragons as Flamell in his Summary hath such an Allusion But the Philosopher as he adds in his Hieroglyphicks of the two Dragons never feels his stink unless he break his Vessels but only he judgeth it by the colours proceeding from the rottenness of the Confections And indeed it is a wonder to consider which some Sons of Art are eye-witnesses of that the fixed and most digested Body of Gold should so rot and putrifie as if it were a Carcass which is done by the admirable Divine virtue of our dissolving Water which no Money can purchase All these operations which are so enlarged by variety of expressions center in one which is killing the quick and reviving the dead For grief and pain whereof his members all began to swell THis venemous fume of exhalations returning upon the Body cause it to swell all over according to the saying of the Philosopher The Body in this Water puffeth up swelleth and putrifieth as a Grain of Corn taking the nature living and vegetable therefore for this cause this Water is in this sence called by the Philosophers their Leaven for as Leaven causeth Past to swell so this fermenteth the body and causeth it to tumefie and puff up it is also called venom for as venom causeth swelling so this Water by its reiteration uncessantly upon our body This operation is uncessant from the first incitation of the matter even until compleat putrefaction for the Toad doth always send forth his exhalations being rather called the Lyon till he be over-come in part and then when the Body begins a little to put on the Nature of the Water and the Water of the Body then it is compared to two Dragons one winged and the other without wings and lastly when that stinking Earth appears which Hermes calls his Terra Foliata or Earth of Leaves then it is most properly called the Toad of the Earth from the first excitation even to the last of this putrefaction which exhalations are at the beginning for a time White and afterwards become Yellowish Blewish and Blackish from the virulency of the matter which exhalations hourly condensing and ever and anon running down like little veins in drops do enter the Body marvelously and the more it is entred the more it swells and puffs up till at length it be compleatly putrefied With drops of poysoned sweat approaching thus his secret Den. THe following two Verses then are but a more Ample description of this work of volatization which is an ascension and descension or circulation of the confections within the Glass Which Glass here called the secret Den is else-where called by the same Author a little Glassen-tun and is an ovall Vessel of the purest White Glass about the bigness of an ordinary Hen-Egg in the which about the quantity of an ounce of 8 drachms of the confection in all mixed is a convenient proportion to be
or melted Pitch but Blackness in part to wit Superficial begins about the fortieth day after the stirring up of the matter in case of right Progress and Regimen of the Fire or about the fiftieth at farthest But this drowning of him in his own Poyson and stewing him in his own Broath is the intire Blackness and Cimmerian utter Darkness of compleat Rottenness which according to the Author is for the space of eighty four days This time is not certainly agreed upon by Authors But in this they all agree they prescribe so long time until the Complement One writes That this Blackest Black indures a long time and is not destroyed in less than five months Another writes That the King when he enters into his Bath pulls off his Robe and gives it to Saturn from whom he receives a Black Shirt which he keeps forty two days And indeed it is two and forty days before he put on this Black Shirt instead of his Golden Robe that is be destroyed as touching his Solary Qualities and become instead of Fixt Citrine Terrene and Solid a Fugitive Black Spiritual Watery and Flegmatick Substance But Putridness begins not till the first Forms be put off for so long as the Body may be reduced into its former Nature it is not yet well ground and imbibed I grind therefore and imbibe till thou see the Bodies to become no Bodies but a Fume and Wind and then circulating for a season thou shalt see them settle and putrifie Saturn then will hold the Earth which is Occidental Retentive and Autumâ—al in the West then proceed to the North where Mercury holdeth the Water where the Matter is Watery and Flegmatick and it is Winter and the North expulsive But they who divide the Operation into Saturn's Rule and after him succeeding Jupiter ascribe to Saturn the whole of Putridness and to Jupiter the time of variety of Colours After Jupiter who holds but twenty or two and twenty days comes Luna the third Person bright and fair and she holds twenty good days sometimes two over and above In this Computation it is good to count from the fortieth or fiftieth day of the first beginning of the Stone to the fourteenth or sixteenth day of Jupiter's Reign wherein in the washing of Laton there is still Blackness though mixed with variety of gay Colours which amounteth to the sum of days allowed by the Author in Putrifaction to wit Eighty four days Accounting intire Blackness with Aâ—gurellus after four times eleven days and nights which make four and forty Or according to another Philosopher which saith In the first Fifty Days there appears the True Crow and after it in Threescore and Ten Dayes the White Dove and after in Fourscore and Ten Days the Tyrian Colour By Tryal then this Venom to expel I did desire For which I did commit his Carcass to a gentle Fire Which done a Wonder to the sight but more to be rehearst The Toad with Colours rare through every side was pierc'd And white appear'd when all the sundry hews were past Which after being tincted ruddy for evermore did last I Shall add my own Sentence Mix thy two Natures well and if thy matter be pure both the Body and the Water and the internal Heat of thy Bath as it ought to be and the external Fire gentle and not violent yet so that the Matter may circulate the Spiritual Nature on the Corporal in six and forty or fifty days expect the beginning of intire Blackness and after six and fifty days more or sixty expect the Peacocks Tayl and Colours of the Rainbow and after two and twenty days more or four and twenty expect Luna perfect the Whitest White which will grow more and more glorious for the space of twenty days or two and twenty at the most After which in a little more increased Fire expect the Rule of Venus for the space of forty days or two and forty and after it the Rule of Mars two and forty days more and after him the Rule of Sol flavus forty days or two and forty And then in a moment comes the Tyrian Colour the sparkling Red the fiery Vermilion and Red Poppy of the Rock Then of the Venom handled thus a Medicine I did make Which Venom kills and saveth such aâ— Venom chance to take THus onely by Decoction these Natures are changed and altered so wonderfully to this blessed Tincture which expelleth all Poyson though it self were a deadly Poyson before the Preparation yet after it is the Balsam of Nature expelling all Diseases and cutting them off as it were with one Hook all that are accidental to Humane frail Body which is wonderful Glory be to Him the Grantor of such secret Ways Dominion and Honour both with Worship and with Praise Amen NOw GOD only is the Dispenser of these glorious Mysteries I have been a true Witness of Nature unto thee and I know that I write true and all Sons of Art shall by my Writings know that I am a Fellow-Heir with them of this Divine Skill To the Ignorant I have wrote so plain as may be and more I had written if the Creator of all things had given me larger Commission Now to Him alone as is due be all Honour and Power and Glory who made all things and giveth knowledge to whom he listeth of his Servaâ—ts and conceals where he pleaseth To Him be ascribed as due is all Service and Honour And now Brother whoever enjoyeth this rare Blessing of God improve all thy strength to do him service with it for he is worthy of it who hath created all things and for whose sake they were and are created The End of Sir George Ripley's Vision Canon of Bridlington MArt Birrius hath published three Treatises of this Authors in Latin but without the Name Philalethes in the last of which entituled Fons Chymicae Philosophiae was left out one whole Chapter called Porta Prima de Calâ—inatione Philosophica with some other defects mentioned by Morhofius in his Epistle de Metallorum Transmutatione pag. 145. which Chapter I having by me and finding a void Page or two like to pass in this Sheet I thought it would neither be amiss nor improper nor unwelcome to the World with this Piece of the same Author to publish it for satisfaction to the Hermetical Students and to prevent the loss thereof W. C. Bibliop Porta Prima De Calcinatione Philosophica CAlcinatio lapidem nostrum purgat calorem naturalem restituit humoris nihil radicalis destruit debitam Lapidi solutionem inducit cautio est ut Philosophicè non vulgariter fiat Salibus aut Sulphure varie praeparatis c. Quicunque itaque Calcinare cupiunt tantisper ab hoc opere desistant usque quo nostram melius Calcinationem intelligant Destruit siquidem Corpora Calcinatio omnis lapidis humorem minuens nos quoque calces omnes aridas reprobamus humiditatem siquidem radicalem calcinando augemus nullam minuimus Nos vero
hastning the most beautiful Flowers of May. Now as the Winter is a sad time being cold and wet frosty and slabbery the Countries of Pleasure being dirty to the Horses belly but the Spring returns the year and pleasure with its sweet season so in our Work thy first Operations before blackness seem tedious but after blackness far more tedious for thou wilt think there will never be an end of it so variety of colours brings delight in its daily and hourly variety even to perfect whiteness Forth from the East into the South ascend And set thee down there in a Chair of Fire For there is Harvest that is to say an end Of all this Work after thine own desire There shineth the Sun up in his Hemisphere After the Eclipses in redness with glory As King to reign over all Metals and Mercury HEre thou mayst light and bait and enjoy the glory of thy white Elixir but do not for thou hadst better wait the end Proceed then with a Fire a little more increased unto the Summer or South quarter where after some colours as green yellow azure and the like thou shalt have a sparkling red like unto the flaming Fire Then thou art come indeed to thy Harvest and to the end of all thy Operations for now thou beginnest by apparent colours the uprising of the Sun after it hath been so long beclouded and eclipsed now hast thou mourned long enough now the time is come that thou shalt need no more to mourn for the Bridegroom is now come forth out of his Chamber and the Sun comes forth as a valiant Champion to win a prize now is the time come in which that of the Poet is fulfilled Ne te poeniteat faciem fuligine pingi Adferet haec Phoebi nigra favilla jubar Now hath our King of Peace attained his Kingdom whose Government is parcere subjectis debellare superbos for whatever is infected our King will cure what is lame he will heal and what is rebellious he will suppress and subdue Sic Regis ad exemplum totus componitur orbis And in one Glass must be done all this thing Like to an Egg in shape and closed well NOw all these our Operations as the Philosopher saith are done in our secret Fire hidden Furnace and in one Vessel for if thou thinkest to make any of these Operations with thy hand thou art in a certain way of errour Our Vessel then which for similitudes sake we call an Egg must be so closed when our Materials are set in it that the Spirits cannot possibly get out nor the Air get in else our Work were spoiled Then must thou know the measure of Firing The which unknown thy Work is lost each deal Let never thy Glass be hotter then thou mayst feel And suffer still in thy bare hand to hold For fear of losing as Philosophers have told THis done we then set our Vessel and Matter to the Fire and let it stand untouched till the Work be done so that the Philosopher hath nothing then to do but behold his Glass and the Operation in it and to govern his Fire artificially So then when once the Stone is set to work the whole Mastery is to govern the external Fire which as the Philosopher doth either perfect or destroy all if thy Fire be too slow for want of motion thou wilt hardly ever see an end and if too big thou mayst happen to seek thy fortune in the Ashes Be not therefore immoderate in governing and for better security let not your Glass neck be under a span in length but as much longer as you shall see good the longer for a Tyro the better he shall work and with the more security But the usual length which we use is about 12 or 14 inches high this height being so allowed order so your Furnace as to let out about 3 or 4 inches of the top of your Glass which may come forth through the cover of your Athanor and if you can without hurt feel or suffer any part of that neck fear not your Fire but stew him without fear your Glass being strong and the quicker Fire the better Yet know that your Furnace must be answerable for do not believe that Philosophers did formerly use our Art of Furnaces but made them of Brick or Earth with Earthen Covers which had holes for letting out part of the necks of their Glasses over which if they put a Cover which they could remove and set on again at their pleasure this Earthen Cover was not so reflective of heat as our Iron Covers are but that end of the Glass which came out at the hole of the Cover they could feel without any damage and by their being able to suffer that in their hand they judged the temperament of their heat Therefore in thy Furnace let thy Cover or Top be luted with good Loam every-where at the least half an inch thick so shalt thou be sure not to have too scalding a heat in the concavity of thy Nest which otherwise thou wouldst have so mayst thou govern thy Fire at thy pleasure the necks of thy Glasses which come forth thou needest not cover so shalt thou see this of Ripley verified thy Work will go on very successfully and thou wilt ever be able to endure thy Glass in thy hand and this is the true meaning of all Philosophers to give a certain rule by which thou shalt never exceed and that is so long as you can endure to feel any part of thy Glass provided thy Nest be covered and the ends of thy Glass necks come forth Yet to my Doctrine furthermore attend Beware thy Glass thou never open ne meeve From the beginning till thou have made an end If thou do otherwise thy Work may never cheeve Thus in this Chapter which is but brief c. ANd that this is according to the â—ence of all Wise men is evident by their testimony in general and the following words of Ripley See saith he that thou open not thy Glass nor move it from the beginning to the end of the Work So then this feeling of the Glass it must be such as may be without opening or moving of the same for if the Seed be disturb'd in its beginning to vegetate the Work is undoubtedly spoiled or at least it will be so notably weakned that it will hardly afford thee thy true Signs in thy due time Therefore when thou settest in thy Egg in thy Nest take heed of meddling with it until the Mastery be attain'd but with a Wyre or some such thing or with a hole in thy Cover stay the neck of thy Glass from jogging this way or that which otherwise it will be very subject to Thus have I briefly run through this second Gate of Dissolution which is indeed one with Calcination and Separation for by a constant Sublimation is made a Solution of the Body and at length a Congelation of Spirits for they by oft ascending