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
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
who with the Chymist in Sendivogius cannot dream of any other Mercury then that Mercury which is to be bought at Druggists which they take and sublime variously to make it clean and then with Hogheland mix it with Gold applying all the words and sayings of Philosophers to this their mixture But when the time comes that they should see the signs specified of the Philosophers there they fail it may be by reason of something external to the Gold which it gets in foliating or the Mercury which it gets in washing and purging which though it be but little yet it is enough in heat to give a light Tincture to the Superficies they may with Hogheland see a discoloured outside which is nothing for our Operation is not so trivial that a man had need of Spectacles and a most clear light to discern it but it is so apparent that a half blind man would be amazed at it for our Body even the perfect Body is divided which common Mercury can never do though a man bless himself never so much in his mock-purgations But when as such Work-men have waited their time out and it may be out again and see not blackness then they run into another extreme and share the fault of their errour which was only in their Mercury or withall in their proportion for pondus and heat of external Fire between both principles and then say with Hogheland our Mercury and our Gold are not vulgar but they are something no man knows what which the Philosophers have called Gold and Mercury which yet are some strange thing which man never heard of or some common thing or some vile thing Thus they vanish into smoak and all for want of knowledge of our true Mercury For until the Soul be separate And cleansed from its original sin With the Water and throughly spiritualizate The true Conjunction mayst thou never begin Therefore the Soul first from the Body twine Then of the corporal part and of the spiritual The Soul shall cause Conjunction perpetual REmember then that thou get such a Mercury which may destroy and conquer thy Body mollifie it soften it and draw out its Seed and sever the Soul from it by virtue of that Spirit which is in thy dissolving Water Spirits naturally uniting with Spirits as one flame will mix with another The Soul being thus severed from the Body it will dry and rot as naturally as any other thing will that hath its Soul separated And as by the Water which extracts the Soul it dies and grows putrid and black so by the same Water it is washed from its filthy blackness then the clean Soul having cleansed the Body is united to it that from that time the Body follows the Soul and is moved always with it upon the Fire flying and descending in the form of a Spirit which is a wonder to behold This is our Secret so much esteemed Conjunction which is celebrated after the loosing putrefying and purifying of our Body This is the true process of our Work according to the true exigency of Nature first the Soul is to be divided from the Body that is grosness may be purged by corruption and rotting and the Spirit which is a form of light and seminal may being let loose multiply it self by the Spirit of the Water and so being allied to the Body from whence it was drawn and to the Water from whose Spirit it receives an increase in virtue and Tincture it may unite both the Spirit and the Body with a perpetual bond He who works thus shall undoubtedly attain unto perfection Of two Conjunctions Philosophers mention make Gross when the Body is with Mercury reincrudate But let this pass and to the second heed take Which is as I said after Separation celebrate In which the parties be left with least to colligate And so promoted unto most perfect temperance That never after may be repugnance BUt when as the Philosophers speak of Conjunction it is warily to be considered of what Conjunction they do mean for as it is a term very often used so is it very doubtfully to be taken One Conjunction which they speak of is gross which is properly Amalgamation it is the first Operation after the preparation of the Mercury But this is not the Conjunction here to be understood but a more secret by far in which man worketh nothing at all but stands by only and beholds Natures Operation And this work is done without any laying on of hands and very quickly when the Matters are prepared and made fit This work is therefore called a Divine Work This Conjunction is far more intimate than the gross for this is an union per minima or intima so that the essence of the one enters the essence of the other so as to make it but one substance This maketh a temper which man by no Art could make for even as Water mixed with Water is inseparable so is it now with these principles Now is concord amity and friendship made for now the hot and the dry will embrace the cold and moist and now patience is made between the Water and the Fire Thus causeth true Separation true Conjunction to be had Of Water and Air with Earth and Fire But that each Element into other may be led And so abide for ever at thy desire Do as do Dawbers with Clay or Mire Temper them thick and make them not too thin This do up-drying the rather thou shalt win THus the Proverb is verified Amantium irae amoris redintegratio est for Love brought them together Love parted them with a seeming discontent and at last Love unites them with a perpetual tye that they can no more part for ever without a new Resolution in this dissolving Water after they are first become perfect Now the same thing is both moist and dry hot and cold according to the qualities of the Elements that I may speak according to the usual voice of Philosophers for now is of two made three and of three made four and of four one the Quadrangle is turned into a Circle to the amazement of Nature For the essence of one Element now penetrateth the essence of another that is the essential properties are so throughly mixed that all four now make but one partaking of all These are those principles which God now hath conjoyned and therefore nothing can separate Rejoyce now O Son of Art for thou hast the Sun for thy Diadem and the Moon Crescent for thy Garland That thou mayst the more certainly easily and speedily attain to this and that thy signs may the better and orderly appear next to thy care of preparing true and purged Mercury and pure Gold first be sure of thy mixture mix them like as a Potter mixeth his Loam Be sure you do not over-glut your Earth with Water nor cloy your Water with Earth but impast them and then grind them together as diligently as a Painter would grind his Colours for
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
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
way mark that you are to meet with is the whiteness of the Compound for the Peacocks tail though with its gayness it refresheth and delights the beholder yet those colours are but transient but the white is a stable colour and it is thy first Harvest in which the moisture is vanquished and volatile Natures are fixed The Work as it is the long-wished Haven so it is performed without any help of the Artist any more then to continue a due degree of outward heat for know that thou hast not so great a desire after this sight but Nature hath as great an appetite to obtain it for it is the end of all her former Operations from the attaining whereof thou canst not hinder her if the external heat be continued as it ought Yet about this the whole company of Alchymists do mightily busie themselves who have nothing more in their hopes then to make our great Elixir do mainly labour after Congelation though in their Solution in which the Key of our Coagulation resteth they are as stupid as Blocks Some dissolve Metals with Corrosives others Salts and afterwards filter them which they think graduates them with which trumpery they intend no less a Coagulate then the true permanent Tincture but alas they are deceived for they work not upon the right Matter Others although they happen to stumble in part upon the right Matter yet herein they erre that they understand our Operations preposterously and interpret our meaning contrary to our true intent for all that they dream of is such Operations which are to be performed by hand thus they dissolve and congeal but stumble in operandi modo For our Congelation is no such thing as this but in every point it is contrary to it for in our Operation Nature only works who therefore doth bring forth a true and not a Sophistical Operation Our Congelation dreadeth not the Firâ— For it must ever in it stand unctuous And it is also a Tincture so bounteous Which in the Air c. Moreover congeal not c. But that like Wax it will melt anon withouten blast For such congealing accordeth not c. Which Congelation availeth us not FOr as in our Solution we do not make our Gold volatile as to shew as Fools may do but actually it is made fugitive so as that by no Art of man it can ever be fixt again but only by that Nature which made it volatile so also our Fixation doth make our flying Spirits so Fire-abiding that they by no Art of man can ever be burnt away yet it will flow like Wax Nor is it fixed in manner of flying Spirits in Vegetables which are fixed by burning into an Alâ—ali for it will never relent neither in the Air nor Water like to a congealed Salt Nor yet is our Congelation a formal Transmutation of a thing by another seminal virtue for then it would become of a Stony Flinty or Adamantine nature but by its own internal virtue the Mercury is changed into Sulphur incombustible yet so as that the Mercuriality retains some of its qualities in a very noble remarkable way furnishing the Compound with a fusible unctuosity when at the same time the Sulphur retains that fluxibility with a most noble incombustibility So then take this for the Touch-stone of all thy Alchymical endeavours if ever thou intend any thing commendable in our Art see that thy Medicine be of an easie fusion so that when it is cast on a plate of Metal heated it may enter it and flow on it like Wax or melted Pitch yea let the flux be so easie that it may flow upon Mercury and enter it before its flight otherwise brag not of thy skill for thou art yet in a way of Sophistry out of which thou shalt never escape without a more then ordinary providence of God If thou therefore list to do wee l Sith the Medicine shall never else flow kindly Neither congeal without thou first it putrefie First purge then fix the Elements of our Stone Till they together congeal and flow anon THat thou therefore mayst be sure of thy Work and not repent thy cost and pains as many do when it is too late take my counsel and know that thy Medicine never can nor shall flow as it ought except thy Solution be Philosophical Know then that our Solution is not an ordinary vulgar dissolving of Bodies either by Corrosives or any other way but our true dissolving is nothing else then putrefying that is a destroying of the Compaction wholly with a preservation of the Species This Operation be sure to make before thou dream of Congelation for then thy Spirits will naturally fix and flow together congealing and relenting so long until they come to a perfect Powder impalpable which then hath ingress into all Metals penetrating their very profundity and altering them radically For when the Matter is made perfectly white Then c. But of such time thou mayst have long respite Ere it congeal c. And after into grains red as bloud Richer c. SO then our Congelation is nothing else but the whitening of the Bodies of which the Philosopher speaketh when he saith Whiten thy Body and burn thy Books lest our hearts be broken This is the Haven at which after many a nights watching and days labour thou mayst with Gods blessing hope at length to arrive but in the mean season be patient and expect the Harvest in its season First thou shalt have thy Body whitened and all become a white living Water which being moved on the Fire continually will turn first into greater and after that into smaller grains till all at length become a Calx of an exquisite fineness and transcendent brightness which is our Lilly Candent which in the end of thy Operations by continual decoction will be turned into a purple redness which is our wonderful Secret The Earthly grossness therefore first mortified in moisture c. This principle may not be denied c. Which had of whiteness thou mayst not miss c. And if c. THe cause of all these strange alterations in one Glass on one subject with one decoction without laying on of hands is from the internal disposition of the Compound which at the first is gross and Earthy therefore in decoction it becomes very black it being the nature of all moist gross things by the Fire to acquire such a colour And this is according to the intention of all Philosophers that although thou seekest white and red yet thou must at first make black before thou canst make white profitably But when once thy Matter is become truly black rejoyce for this death of the Body will be the quickning of the Spirit and then both Soul and Body will unite into a perfect whiteness which is our Kingly Diadem The end of the sixth Gate THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER Reader IT is an Argument of a noble and generous Soul to be freely communicative for the
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
neck carefully without flaw or crack or hole for the least vent will let out the subtile Spirit and destroy the work You may know the exact Sealing of your Glass thus when it is cold put the neck where it is sealed into your mouth and suck strongly if there be the least vent you will draw out the Air that is in the Vial into your mouth which when you take the Glass from your mouth is again suckt into the Glass with a hissing so that your ear may perceive the noise this is an undoubted tryal Rule XII You must then provide your self with a Furnace by wise men called an Athanor in which you may accomplish your work nor will any one serve in your first work But such a one in which you may give a heat obscurely red at your pleasure or lesser and that in its highest degree of heat it may endure twelve hours at the least This if you would obtain Observe First that your nest be no bigger then to contain your dish with about an Inch vacancy at the side where the Vent-hole of your Athanor is for the Fire to play Secondly Let your Dish be no bigger then to hold one Glass with about an inch thickness of Ashes between the Glass and side remembring the word of the Philosopher One Glass One Thing One Furnace for such a Dish standing with the bottom level to the vent-hole which in such a Furnace ought to be but one about three Inches Diameter sloping upwards will with the stream of Flame which is always playing to the top of the Vessel and round about the bottom be kept always in a glowing heat Thirdly If your Dish be bigger your Furnace vent must be within a third part or a fourth as big as your Platter is Diameter else it cannot be exactly nor continually heated Fourthly If your Tower be above six Inches square at the Fire-place you are out of proportion and can never do rightly as to the point of heat For if you cause it if above that proportion to stream with flame the heat will be too big And if it stream not it will not be big enough or very hardly Fifthly Let the top of your Furnace be closed to an hole which may but just serve for casting in of Coals about three Inches Diameter or Square which will keep down the heat powerfully Rule XIII These things thus ordered set in your Glass with your matter and give Fire as Nature requires easie not too violent beginning there where Nature left Now know that Nature hath left your Materials in the Mineral Kingdom therefore though we take comparison from Vegetables and Animals Yet you must understand a Parallel in the Kingdom in which the Subject you would handle is placed As for Instance if I should Analogize between the Generation of a Man and the Vegetation of a Vegetable you must not understand as though the heat for one were to be measured by the other for we know that in the ground Vegetables will grow which is not without heat which they in the Earth feel even in the beginning of the Spring yet would not an Egg be hatched in that heat nor could a man feel any warmth but rather to him a numbing cold Since then you know that your work appertains all to the Mineral Kingdom you must know what heat is fit for Mineral Bodies and may be called a gentle heat and what violent First now consider where Nature leaves you not only in the Mineral Kingdom but in it to work on Gold and Mercury which are both incombustible Yet Mercury being tender will break all Vessels if the Fire be over extreme Therefore though it be incombustible and so no Fire can hurt it yet also it must be kept with the Male Sperm in one Glass which if the Fire be too big cannot be and by consequence the work cannot be accomplished So then from the degree of heat that will keep Lead or Tin constantly molten and higher so high as the Glass will endure without danger of breaking is a temperate heat and so you begin your degrees of heat according to the Kingdom in which Nature hath left you As then the highest degree of heat which the root of a Tree feels in the bowels of the Earth is not by far comparable to the lowest degree of heat an Animal hath So the highest degree of heat a Vegetable will endure without burning is too low for the first degree of Mineral heat as to our Work Rule XIV Know that all your progress in this Work is to ascend in Bus Nubi from the Moon up to the Sun that is in Nubibus or in Clouds Therefore I charge thee to sublime in a continual vapour that the Stone may take Air and live Rule XV. Nor is this enough but for to attain our permanent Tincture the water of our Lake must be boyled with the Ashes of Hermes Tree I charge thee then to boyl night and day without ceasing that in the troubles of the stormy Sea the Heavenly Nature may ascend and the Earthly descend For verily if we did not Boyl we would never name our work Decoction but Digestion For where the Spirits only Circulate silently and the Compound below moves not by an Ebullition that is only properly to be named Digestion Rule XVI Be not over hasty expecting Harvest too soon or the end soon after the beginning For if thou be patiently supported in the space of fifty days at the farthest thou shalt see the Crows Bill Many saith the Philosophers do imagine our Solution to be an easie work But how hard it is they can only tell who have tryed and made Experience Seest thou not a Grain of Corn sow it and after three days thou shalt only see it swell'd which being dry'd is the Corn it was before Yet thou canst not say it was not cast into its due Matriâ—x for the Earth is its true place but only it wanted its due time to Vegetate But things of an harder Kernel lie in the ground a far longer time as Nuts and â—lumb stones for each thing hath its season And this is a true sign of a natural Operation that it stays its season and is not Precipitate Dost think then that Gold the most solid Body in the world will change its Form in a short time Nay thou must wait and wait until about the 40 th day utter blackness beâ—â—ns to appear when thou seest that â—â—en conclude thy Body is destroy'd that 〈◊〉 made a living Soul and thy Spirit is â—ead that is Coagulated with the Body â—ut till this sign of Blackness both the â—old and the Mercury retain their Forms â—nd Natures Rule XVII Beware that thy Fire go not out no â—ot for a moment so as to let thy Matâ—er be cold for so Ruine of the Work â—ill certainly follow By what has been said thou mayst gaâ—â—er that all our work is nothing else â—ut an uncessant boyling of thy Comâ—â—ound
in the first degree of liquifying â—eat which is found in the Metalline â—ingdom in which the Internal Vapours â—â—all go round about thy matter in â—hich fume it shall both die and be reâ—â—ived Rule XVIII Know that when the White appears which will be about the end of Five Months that then the accomplishment of the White Stone approacheth Rejoyce then for now the King hath overcome Death and is rising in the East with great Glory Rule XIX Then continue your Fire until the Colours appear again then at last you shall see the fair Vermillion the Red Poppyâ— Glorifie God then and be thankful Rule XX. Lastly you must boyl this Stone in the same water in the same proportion with the same Regimen only your Fire shalâ— then be a little slacker and so you shalâ— increase Quantity and Goodness at your pleasure Now the only God the Father of light bring you to see this Regeneration of the light and make 〈◊〉 to rejoyce with him for ever hereafter in lightâ— Amen AN ADVERTISEMENT THis Author having wrote many Excellent Pieces on this Subject not so much to manifest himself an Adept aâ— many have done as to benefit the Worldâ— by his Writings himself professing that â—â—though the rest of his Adept Brethren â—ad as we may say enviously sworn seâ—â—ecie contrary to their received Maxim â—f doing all the good they may with this â—rge Talent so long as they live and â—â—nger if it might be yet had not he so â—worn though they supposed it for he â—ad as himself confesseth an extraorâ—inary impulse of mind to be helpful to all â—â—ncere searchers of this secret Art to use â—is own words and to stretch out his hand 〈◊〉 such as are behind Seeing therefore â—hat it was the Authors own desire to â—enefit the World by his Labours and â—hat he gave his consent to Mr. Starkey for Printing his Pieces as appears in his Preface to the Marrow of Alchimy I know no reason wherefore his Writings should lie conceal'd any longer And great pity it was that Mr. Starkey did separate this Author's Commentarie upon Sir George Ripley's 12 Gates which he did as I was informed by one unto whom he gave the very Book from which he confessed he had cut the last Six Gates the Person demanding the reason wherefore he cut them in sunder he answered that the World was unworthy of them which nevertheless he promis'd to give that Person a Transcript of but did not which is the reason that they cannot yet be found the loss of which is very much lamented Wherefore if any Gentleman hath them by him or any other piece of this Author It is humbly desired that they will send them to the Pellican in Little Britain London that they may be Printed with the first Six Gates which are now in the Press And that I may not be wanting to contribute what I can for the discovery of this Author's Works I here make bold to present the Reader with a Catalogue of such Pieces as are noted to be writ by this Author under the disguised name of Aeyraeneus Philalethes part whereof are set down by Mr. Starkey in his Preface aforenamed and part are mentioned by the Author himself with several others which he wrote as he saith for his own recreation and afterwards burn'd which Author is acknowledged by all hands to be an English-man and an Adept supposed to be yet living and travelling and about the age of 55 years but his Name is not certainly known These Books in this Catalogue were written by Eirenaeus Philalethes whereof these 15. following are Printed 〈◊〉 INtroitus apertus ad ocâ—lusum Regis Palatium Amst 1667. This is Re. printed in Germany with the Collection of Books called Musaeum Hermeticum of the Edition 1677. in 4 o 〈◊〉 Idem in English called Secrets Reveal'd Printed at London 1669. in 8o. being much more perfect than the Latine Editions 〈◊〉 The Marrow of Alchymy in two Poems or Parts in English Verse Lond. 1654. 1655. 〈◊〉 Ars Metallorum Metamorphosews Amst 1668. in 8o. These are likewise in the aforesaid Edition of the Musaeum Hermeticum Brevis manuductio ad Rubinum Coelestem Amst 1668. in 8o. These are likewise in the aforesaid Edition of the Musaeum Hermeticum Fons Chymicae Philosophiae Amst 1668. in 8o. These are likewise in the aforesaid Edition of the Musaeum Hermeticum 〈◊〉 Methodica Enarratio trium Gebri Medicinarum Lond. 1678. in 8o. 〈◊〉 Vade-Mecum Philosophicum sive breve manuductorium ad Campum Sophiae Lond. 1678. in 8o. 〈◊〉 Experimenta de praeparatione Mercurii Sophici Lond. 1678. in 8o. 〈◊〉 A Commentary or Exposition upon Sir G. Ripley's Epistle to Edw. IV. King of England Lond. 1678. in 8o. 〈◊〉 Idem upon Sir G. Ripley's Preface to his Compound of Alchymy Lond. 1678. in 8o. 12. Idem upon the first six Gates of his Compound of Alchymy London 1678. in 8o. 13. Idem upon the Recapitulation of his Compound of Alchymy London 1678. in 8o. 14. Idem upon his Vision London 1678. in 8o. 15. Experiments for the Preparation of the Sophick Mercury London 1678. in 8o. These 13. following he wrote but we cannot as yet find where the Copies are 1. A Comment or Exposition upon the last six Gates of Sir G. Ripley's Compound of Alchymy 2. Idem upon Sir G. Ripley's Erroneous Experiments 3. Idem upon Sir G. Ripley's Wheel 4. Idem upon Arnold's Vltimum Testamentuâ— 5. Opus Elixeris Aurifici Argentifici 6. Brevis via ad vitam longam or Alchymy Trâ—umphing 7. Cabala Sapientum or an Exposition upon the Hieroglyphicks of the Magi. 8. Elenchus Errorum in Arte Chymica deviantiumâ— 9. Elenchus Authorum potissimorum in Arte Chymicâ—â— 10. An Enâ—hiridion of Experiments togetheâ— with a Diurnal of Meditations in which weâ—â— many Philosophical Receipts declaring thâ—â— whole Secret with an Aenigma at the end 11. Analysis Operis 12. A Clavis to his Works 13. Comments or Expositions upon Flammâ—â— Artephius and Sendivogius But these threâ— are rather Quaeried then affirmed to be wrotâ—â— by this Author AN EXPOSITION UPON Sir GEORGE RIPLEY's PREFACE Written by Aeyrenaeus Philalethes ANGLUS COSMOPOLITA LONDON Printed for William Cooper at the Pellican in Little Britain MDCLXXVII An Exposition UPON THE PREFACE OF S r GEORGE RIPLEY Canon of Bridlington TO pass over his Prologue which is Adhortatory to the desirously studious of this Art and the beginning of the Preface which is his Address to God who is the only Giver of Wisdom to bestow upon him true Understanding that he might lead his sinful Life to the glory of him being over-swayed from what he was naturally by him who is the Fountain of all Goodness I shall take up his Pattern for a Precedent rather of Imitation than a Subject of Exposition And first as touching those who shall bend themselves to this Science Let them resolve that they undertake a most admirable piece of Work in which though far be it that I should
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
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
Metals to Gold and Silver perfite Thus guide thy base both red and white THis Heavenly Earth is true Mineral Fire which is then resembled to the Sun in its Summer Solstice it is called Venom because it penetrates Metals so wonderfully it is called our Basilisk our Cockatrice our Tyrian Poison though indeed it be an excellent Medicine in which respect it is called our incomparable inestimable Elixir But the denomination of Basilisk it retains from its sudden operation upon Mercury for it penetrates it in projection as warm Oyl runs into sinking Paper even to the profundity of it Let thy Mercury therefore be taken as it is crude bought at the Apothecaries and thou shalt set it in a Crucible to the Fire in such a heat as the Mercury may not fume and when it is so hot that it is ready to fly which you shall discern by a spurtling noise throw upon it of your Medicine as much as will teyne it and you shall see that in a moment it will enter it and straightway the Mercury loseth its flux and stands congealed Then it is to be melted by a Fire of fusion and you shall find pure Gold or Silver according to the quality of your Medicine But if you cast your high Elixir in too great a quantity on Mercury you shall find in the Crucible after projection a brittle mass of the quality and colour of the first Medicine only of a lower virtue which then you may project upon any inferiour Metal and it will transmute it into most perfect This operation is not apparent or to sight as is the work of Sophisters but it is both inward and outward for it transmuteth into a perfect species and not only to shew This is the way of projection both of thy white and thy red Quintessences first to cast them upon Sol or Luna according as thy Medicine is and after that to make projection on Mercury again and again till you find the true extent of the virtue of your Stone Aurum Potabile thus is made Of Gold not commonly calcinate ANd now I come to the second reward that Wisdom doth bring with her and that is length of days and here I have transposed some few Verses of Ripleys concerning Aurum Potabile that what he saith in this point may be represented in view together Method inviting me to it Some propound the Medicine of Aurum Potabile to be Extracted out of Sol pure by corroding with Aqua Regia and afterwards levigating it by reiterate Calcinations in the Fire and manual Contritions This Calx so subtilized some attempt to resolve by Menstrues as they call them but in vain there being only one Menstruum that hath the power to resolve both Gold and all sublunary Bodies to their first matter Paracelsus the first Author of this did name this dissolving Water his Alkahest his Jgnis Gehennae his â—orrosivum specificum with many other names This Medicine thus made of Gold by the Alkahest as it is Philosophical and real so it is very excellent and known only to the Adepti Yet this is not our great Medicine for this being but a resolution of Gold in its unary simplicity doth afford to us only the most exquisite Medicine that is in Gold as it is made and left by Nature which partly for its simple vertue and partly for its Metallick determination doth not enter our Constitutive Principles and consequently cannot touch or reach long life But of our Tincture which will not fade Out of our base drawn by our Menstrue circulate BUt when as we have by our Art exalted Gold from an unary to a millenary perfection and advanced it from its gross corpulency to a Spiritual Tincture which is unfading and of all Sublunary things the most durable then out of this so glorious and triumphant in an universal virtue we do make an Oyl so called by us though it be permiscible by mixture in any Liquor which Oyl is the very Tree of Life which prevails and triumphs over all the Miseries in the world For it is not Metallum but transcending all Metalline things This Tincture is extracted out of Gold not as Tinctures are drawn by the Sal Circulatum of Paracelsus but by an universal changing of the Sickness of the Metalline off-spring into a true posture of Health by which means it is able to heal all Metalline Bodies from their Leprosie and being resolved by its own Vegetable Humidity which is our first Menstrue circulated till the Water have a ferment from the Bodies and the Bodies from the Water it will give a Spiritual Tincture sparkling like the flame to tast most sweet to smell most pleasant the most incomparable Treasure of the whole World And for thy first ground principal Vnderstand thy Waters Menstrual NOw I return to that which went before concerning this Medicine which I passed over in that place that I might here bring it in together and indeed he who will know this Mystery he must in the first place learn to know his Menstrual Waters for without this knowledge he can never come to this Mastery for with the third Menstruum counting three according to Ripley or the second Water making the first and second into one with Artephâ—us is this fragrant Balsam made And verily the whole is but Cohobation the first Water being cohobated so long upon the Bodies till it receive from them a quality of natural heat yet so as that the quality of its own Fire which is corruptive and so against Nature be mingled in way of action and passion with the natural Fire This makes a Fire innatural and is the second Water in which colours rise and set frequently and then by cohobating it till Fire of Nature have wholly subdued his Adversary and made a perfect peace and union with it Then all is Fire of Nature then the Clouds are scattered and the Light appears and this is our third Water the subject of wonders which being one alone doth from that time all operations within it self congealing relenting calcining exalting subliming and fixing all Elements being linked here inviolably to the making up of that great Mysterium magnum which Paracelsus described but knew it not we both know it and have seen it and what we do know and have seen we do faithfully relate And when thou hast made Calcination Increasing not wasting moisture radical Vntil thy base by oft subtilation Will lightly flow as Wax on a Metal Then loose it with thy Vegetable Menstrual Till thou have Oyl thereof in colour bright THerefore labour thou to bring thy Gold to a Calcination not by Corrosives but by Mercury not into a Powder red and dry but into a Calx black and unctuous and multiply moisture by our true Virgins Milk then circulate these Natures together till they will flow like unto Wax upon a Plate of Metal which is the sign of the true Tincture of Luna Continue thy Fire till the fixt again relent of its
Now then without any Complement I am yours ad usque aras and whatever you please that will I do Then said she Vnder this Chamber and Closet there is a Stove put Fire into it for this King must sweat to death Ah sweet Lady said I and what will become of you Care not you for that said she do you as I bid you But yet farther to satisfie your curious mind let me tell you That I indure without hurt the most violent Fires which are or can be made for I am in them all and no less in the most frozen places Then I considered and methought my Understanding it was inlarged and I perceived the extent of Nature and of a sudden she appeared not to my sight but where she was I saw a most exquisite Light which took up an incredible small room and methoughts my Head seemed as it were diaphanous And while I considered these things it came into my mind to wonder what was become of my Guide for I miss'd him While these thoughts perplexed me an Answer was given as if from an intelligent Spirit within the Glass saying Let not thoughts fill your mind he whom you seek is with us for so it must be this King is his Lord. This straight made me view the complexion of the Water-bearer and his countenance told me that he was my very Guide Then I viewed his Pitcher well and I found that his Pitcher was clear as pure Silver and what was strange the Bearer and the Pitcher and the Water in it were one and in the midst of the Water as it were in the very centre there was a most radiant twinkling Spark which sent forth its Beams even to the very surface of the Water and appeared as it were a Lamp burning and yet no way distinguishable from the Water The Voice then spake to me a second time Delay not to put Fire under us and govern it as you shall hear the Voice direct you Then I put Fire in at the open door at the top of the high Turret and Coals upon it and caused my doors to be stopt both above and below and on every side only by a secret passage I conveyed my Immortal Fire under the Chamber in which was the Closet and forthwith when all things were heated the Water-bearer took his Pitcher and through a small Pipe he poured out his Water and the Fire came out with the Water without any particular shape only it added a lustre thereto and no sooner was the Water poured forth but the Water-bearer with his Pitcher popt as it were under the streams and I saw them no more And though the clearness of the Water did make it to appear as it were Diaphanous yet I found by a diligent view that it was not so really but only as to apparency and that it was indeed very compact And as I wistfully beheld it I saw as it were a goodly Lady in the midst of it which was no way resembling the former Beauty which I had discoursed withal whose Name was Nature yet indeed very bcautiful even to the parallel of Helena This Lady was naked and of an admirable fair complexioned Skin as bright as the finest Silver at first she appeared very small and waxed bigger and bigger until the Water appeared no more but she her self had transmuted its whole substance into her shape This sight I beheld with pity for she far unlike unto the first Lady was wholly impatient of the heat which I had made and yet was so inclosed in the Closet that she could not get out she sweat therefore even as though she would melt and seemed as though continually fainting Then the King who seemed as it were glad of the heat seeing her knew her to be his Sister his Mother and his Wife and compassionating her estate ran unto her and took her in his Arms and she feeling him did so strongly embrace him that he could not shake her off and with her sweat partly and partly with her tears she did so bestream his Kingly Robes which shone like unto Tagus or Pactolus that they were all suddenly changed into a colour Argent the King loving her exceedingly asked her what she desired She answered That her desire was to have of him Conjugal Fealty for said she I cannot endure this heat but I must die in it and without me your Highness can have no Off-spring The King condescended and granted her Request and so soon as she conceived the Kings Seed she said that she was better able to endure the Fire which did prevail upon her Therefore not contented she had a second a third and fourth Benevolence even to the eleventh time Then said the King I am very faint and weak and trying to go as formerly his Legs and Feet failed him his Flesh and Body wasted as it were to nothing and so continued worse and worse until at length his Body being thus wasted by Venery began to sweat exceedingly so long he sweated till he was as it were wholly consumed and his Wife seeing what fell out wept bitterly and her tears mingling with her Husbands sweat grew into a large stream in which both she and the King were drowned so far I beheld And then when they were both wholly out of sight I mused at the strangeness of the object and while I wondered methought I saw them ascend again but considering it well I found that there swam upon the Water a Carcass which being wholly void of Life did with the heat of the place draw to putrefaction more and more so that it grew livid black blewish and yellowish and sent up most venemous Exhalations and with its odour did so infect the Waters which were before of an Argent Clearness that they did grow very thick and dark and at last black resembling the form of muddy slime which is found in Boggs and at length with the heat of the Sun the moisture was wholly dried up as Moorish low Grounds in the summer time use to be and I sought what was become of my Bodies and I found a horrible venemous tumefied Toad which seemed as it were dying and a Raven almost famished walking there for to look for meat lighted upon the Toad and preyed upon him and with its poison died and made a most filthy squallid Liquor blacker than Ink and thick like to Pitch melted which made me to wonder at the sight And going to depart I heard a Voice which said to me You must not leave us if you do our Persons and Kingdom is lost without recovery Then my Eyes were opened and I saw Nature walking up and down among the Carcases and in her hand her unparallell'd Lamp and taking a more serious view I saw in those rotten Atoms the Idea's of all things natural and supernatural and I found the dead King with his Wife were intombed in a Field Sable and the Tomb as it were of polished Jet or Ebony and as in that place all
though to them their Light seem clear enough yet can they see nothing by it but what is phantastical and mystically or sophistically written by the Envious for the seducing of such fanciful Doters therefore when once the Light of Nature is brought to their station it discovers Cimmerian darkness there where their imaginary Light only shines such as is Fox-fire and Glow-worms Tails that shine only in the dark This Light makes their Eyes so tender that the Lamp of Nature makes them fly Moreover whatever is written according to this Light they cannot see nay they cannot endure the Light of the true Luna of the wise men for any true Light discovers their Darkness and yet their Darkness is uncapable of apprehending the Light Now in that you went in among them without your Candle it was a bold adventure for had you lost your Thread you could never have returned Then I looked into my Tower and did as I was directed and again I went to view those parts of Cimmerian Darkness once more yet with my Candle in mine hand and my Thread at my Girdle when I came the second time at the sight of this Light all fled so that I could not meet with any but I entered into several turnings which I saw and found in them several works curiously erected in which I might guess they aimed at nothing less than the Philosophers Stone With Sulphurs I Found one Furnace most curiously built in which all degrees of heat imaginable by the Art of man might be kept with one fire in which was set a multitude of curious Glasses in which were several Matters some digesting others subliming others distilling others calcining and about the Glasses and the Furnace was written this of Geber Per Deum Sulphur est omne illud illuminans quod est supra terram By this I knew that Sulphur was the subject on which was wrought and indeed with so great cunning that I could not but admire the ingenuity of the men and knowing that what a man prizeth though it be a trifle yet to spoil or destroy that would be an injury I meddled not with any Glass for indeed there were Labourers that fled not because they knew nothing but only wrought as they were directed and when I came they could not perceive that I had any Candle in my hand and wondred their Masters should fly so from a phansie Moreover I found that they could not see any light from the Fox-fire and Glow-worms tails which were there but the place being dark as being under ground they wrought by Candles and Lamps which yet could give their Masters no light but they sought all the world over for those shining subjects Yet I could notwithstanding both discern utter darkness which the Rays of my Candle would not enlighten Then said I to the Workmen What is this that is brought in here Oh said they they are Sol and Luna terrestrial whereby our Masters can see clearly the Natures of all things in the world and to make by their light the great Elixir and though we can see no light in them or very little it is because of our Ignorance in these things therefore we use our Lamps to work by Where are your Masters said I. They ran away said they because when you came they said you were a Devil and brought an ominous light with you and if they did but once see that with a full view their Works would all vanish they did therefore lay a few Charms and ran away Then I looked and the ground under me was full of Crosses and Circles at which I laughed and departed into another Room Or Salts preparate in divers wise Neither with Corrosives nor with Fire alone Neither with Vinegar nor with Waters ardent Nor with the vapour of Lead our Stone Calcined is according to our intent All those to Calcining which are so bent From this hard Science withdraw their hand Till they our Calcining better understand ANd there I found in the like sort rare Furnaces with this Inscription Sal Metallorum est Lapis Philosophorum many processes I beheld which would be tedious to relate On I passed from thence and in another Room I found large Furnaces in which they were labouring about Waters for t others were with strong reverberations calcining Lead Tin Copper Iron and all Metals and Minerals others were drawing Spirit of Vinegar with a great care till it became exquisitely sharp and in this they laboured to calcine several Metalline bodies others were rectifying Spirit of Wine so long till no Body almost or Receiver could hold it it was so subtile and this they said was the true Water of Life that must do the work others were subliming of Lead hoping after it was exquisitely sublimed to have out of it that Menstruum which should effect the Stone without any further laying on of hands This when I had seen I returned to my Furnace and recruited my Fire as I was directed and made a particular relation of what I had seen and desired the verdict of Nature upon them all She told me That they could never by this way expect any thing but loss I asked her if they might not with trying many things at length hit the right She told me No they had not any ground of truth nor could they expect either the great secret or any other particular profitable truth in that way Then said I Noble Lady pray let me know the reason of their error that I may know how to avoid the like For by such Calcination their bodies be shent Which minisheth the moisture of our Stone Therefore when bodies to powder are brent Dry as ashes of Tree or Bone Of such Calxes then will we none For moisture we multiply radical In Calcining minishing none at all THen said she Besides that they work not on the true Matter they work not in a right way which are two most desperate errors for our work is to make a substance fluid penetrating and entring that may have ingress into imperfect Metals for which cause we do preserve humidity without which our Stone cannot be penetrative So then instead of purifying the crude and ripening what is raw by these Calcinations the tender Soul is put to flight and the crudities are the more strongly vitrified so that all hope of fruit is wholly by this means taken away for take this for a rule whatever either by violence of Fire or Corrosives is turned into a dry Powder or Calx it is wholly reprobate in our work for though we Calcine yet it is in such a Fire in which our moisture is not burnt and in such a Vessel so closed that the Spirits are retained and in a word so sweet is our Regimen in reference to our Matter that moisture is advanced and is made more unctuous and by consequent more ingressive And for a sure ground of our true Calcination Work wittily only kind with kind For kind unto kind hath appetitive
working of Noble Bacon and many others which though it seem little to differ from the former yet there is a wide difference I know them both but shall not set down the grounds of the other if you understand the former the rule of it may guide you in the latter for there is an infallible rule of proportion how the External and Internal ought to concur to make a sweet Harmony only let me this assure you out of Norton That if thy Body have plenty of drink Then must thou wake when thou desir'st to wink it will cost thee more assiduity of boiling for to dry up three parts then two parts of Water and there must be necessarily a diversity of Internal pondus for the Water being of one and the same Internal heat and the External fire being the same the difference of decoction between two parts and three will be half in half almost until blackness though after blackness there is one and the same time to both Yet either of these proportions are true only you must be sure to qualifie your Mercury in heat and your Regimen of your Furnace accordingly as you work with one or other of these proportions or else your first token of the Crows head will come wonderful slowly If the Water also be equal in proportion To the Earth with heat in due measure Of them will spring a new Burgeon Both white and red in a Tincture pure Which in the Fire shall ever endure Kill thou the quick the dead revive Make Trinity Vnity without any strive This is the surest and best proportion For there is least of the part spiritual The better therefore shall be solution Then if thou didst it with Water small Thine Earth over-glutting which loseth all Take heed therefore to Potters Loam And make thou never too nesh thy Womb. That Loam behold how it temper'd is The mean also by which it is Calcinate And ever in mind look thou bear this That never thine Earth with Water be suffocate ALso if your Water have its proportion qualified accordingly you may temper it with your Earth almost in an equal quality that is two to three or three to four but be sure then of your due government of external Fire and a just size of your Vessel and so you may expect from this mixture Conception and Generation for in this pondus you shall find the death of the Spirit and the quickning of the Body and the exalting of your Tincture first into white and after that into red which will have ingress into Bodies and tyne them permanently and radically Though the Tincture is largest where the Water is most but the work is speediest where the Water is least the Fire is also less hazardable but your true proportion of your Mercury for such a pondus is hard to be found and thou wilt not easily find it unless thou be very skilful the middle proportion is less difficult that of three to one is worse for a Tyro because he may very easily have his time made tedious by it The last would be better for such a one if it were not so hard to apprehend for the Body would soon be made no Body and the Spirit mortified and so Union would follow in a short time in comparison to other proportions So then if thou knowest how to prepare thy Mercury aright for its Internal proportion the lesser thou puttest of the Spirit the better and quicker shall be thy Calcination and Dissolution and the more thou givest of the Water the longer thou shalt be in attaining the mastery but if thou glut thy Earth with Water thou wilt so suffocate the active virtue that thy moisture will not be dried up at least it would require so tedious a decoction that thou wouldest never see the effect But the mediocrity is for thee the best at least at first be not too covetous nor too prodigal for over-driness and over-moisture are both enemies to Generation and make a barren Womb. If thou be'st witty to apprehend therefore I shall shew you the certain way of External proportion for know that as the Water is qualified internally so doth it act externally and if thou canst apprehend the sympathy that is between the inward quality and the outward effect thou mayst easily discern by what is apparent to sight that which is hiddenly contained Then for your true information take this rule Let your Body be very well subtilized and very pure which is a great matter at the least 24 Carrats mix this at first with twice as much of its Water and grind it either on a clean Glass or Marble Mortar grind it thorowly as Painters use to grind their Colours and make not a light matter of this for lack of one half hour or hours pains in thy Amalgamation thou mayst set thy work backward 20 or 30 days for the more subtlely the Amalgama is mixed the more easily and speedily it resolves into Mercury and is wrought upon and the signs appear When thou hast soundly and well ground it and washed it very clean and dried it very thorowly so that there be not the least moisture in it observe the temper if it be plyable like to Paste yet so as when you incline it this way or that you see no Water run to the inclining side which you may easily discern it is a good sure temper but if it be so hard and dry that it will not spread easily it lacks moisture or if that Hydropical water run as it were within a skin to the declining side of your Amalgama add more of your Body to it till you see that sign no more and grind it thorowly as is said and rather chuse to lean to the other hand then to this for there is nothing more irksome to an Artist in his Scholarship then to wait for his signs beyond the time Dry up thy moisture with heat most temperate Help Dissolution with moisture of the Moon And Congelation with the Sun then hast thou done WHen thou hast done this then be sure to decoct it in a very gentle Fire till it be dry not by exhaling the Water but by coagulating it with the Body in which thy main care must be that thy Vessel be close and thy Fire gentle Now the way to distinguish a gentle from a violent Fire is a thing deeply concealed by the envious I shall prescribe some few rules 1. Know that it is the internal Fire of the Sulphur of thy Water which doth perform the whole work 2. That the external Fire is but an outward circumstance which yet is so absolutely necessary that nothing can be effected without it 3. The Regimen of the Fire is one Linear decoction from the beginning to the end of the Work boiling the thick and subliming the thin and so dissevering both suaviter cum ingenio according to old Hermes 4. All our Mastery consists in Vapour which cannot be done without Sublimation and Distillation for if
our Spirit ascended not in a living form it would all ascend and hang but ascending quick it returns again and moistens the Body 5. Our Distillation or Circulation is not without a constant motion of Separation for as the subtle is separated from the gross by Sublimation so the thick of that which is below is severed from the thin which is by continual boiling and decocting without a moments intermission Therefore saith Hermes thou shalt sever the subtle from the gross and the thick from the thin 6. Our tender Spirit learns every day more and more to suffer Fire and therefore saith Arnold boil it with a Fire daily increasing yet is it but one degree of Fire and that is boiling till the Womans Empire is vanquished and then there is another degree and that is roasting which hath two periods Fixation and Calcination therefore say Philosophers in the beginning Coque that is Boil for as much as the Stone is moist and at the end they say Assa that is Roast for then the Stone is dry 7. The periods of the strength of the Fire are in this time many every day if thou canst augment a little that it may increase insensibly and you will find the effect the more sweetly and speedily 8. The Philosophers in their description of the Fire and its degrees did more observe their matter and its capacity then the Fire it self 9. They chiefly liken their Work to Man's Generation and so they call their Compound Man therefore saith Ripley remember Man is the most Noble Creature 10. This is the true meaning of Arnold's four degrees of Fire Primus formetur ut sensus ei dominetur that is the Stone being compared to Man and its first moist Regimen to a Bath the first degree makes it sweat gently as a Bath to a Man which is less hot then he can suffer doth cause a gentle sweat Sensibus aequato gaudet natura secundo is the second degree in which sweat is exceedingly caused as a Bath which is as hot as a man can possibly suffer causes a most violent sweat Tertius excedit cum tolerantia laedit is the third degree which causeth bubbling and swelling and answers to that heat which will blister a mans hand for our Compound in this heat riseth in blisters which fall and rise continually Destructor sensus gaudet procedere quartus is the fourth heat of Congelation which takes away sense that is quickness and brings in siccity just as the cauterizing heat sears the flesh and drys the moisture Thus hiddenly did that subtle Sophister veil his Fires 11. Know that after 40 or 46 days continually boiling the moisture will begin to waste and the Compound will begin to dry which thou shalt know in that the boiling will begin to turn to a swelling like to Puff-paste or Leaveneddough 12. Know that in 36 days thou mayst have thy moisture begin to congeal if thou be exact in thy Fire and Proportions both inward and outward 13. Know that thy Glass must be thick and very strong and no less strongly closed lest it break with those winds which the first decoction will raise in thy Vessel 14. Let its neck be somewhat long and fastned that the motion which is in the Glass may not cause it by reason of the length and thickness of the neck and the Sublimation that is still in it in drops which make it heavy to sway the little Body one way or other for if it incline the Matter will be apt to grow to the inclining side which should be avoided 15. Let the neck be considerably cooler then the other part that thy Vapours may condense in it which else will burst the Glass violently so mayst thou give thy Fire more strong then otherwise and let thy nest be guarded from unnecessary heats and colds which therefore would have holes at the top of the Cover which may shut over every Glass and let out a part of the neck which would be very advantageous both for the fastning of the Glass and condensing of Vapours 16. This boiling will begin in the first three days and if you be a good Work-man in the first 24 hours and from its first ebullition your time is to be reckoned 17. When you see the Water thicken in its boiling there is less danger of the Fire 18. If your Fire go out your Stone dies 19. Every intermission of your Fire is a wasting both of its strength and virtue and besides the most tedious protraction of time it makes the Stone subject to many Sicknesses which would require a most subtle Philosopher to amend and it lays your Stone in danger of having a return of the Crows Pullets to their nest after they are fled which is an ominous sign 20. Your Gold is not totally lost before blackness perfect yet it may be so metamorphosed as to puzzle the best Mechanick to reduce it and then it is never so full of Spirit as it was before 21. Yet some of it will be lost in a short decoction and most of it in thirty days In a Fire then governed according to these Rules dry up thy moisture and that thou mayst dry up the moisture of thy Water thou must dissolve the Compages of thy Body so then thy Water dissolves thy Body and thy dissolved Body re-congeals it self by a further decoction and with it self congeals the Water which in dissolution was so united as to make one with it Four Natures into a fifth so shalt thou turn Which is a Nature most perfect and temperate THus shalt thou turn thy four qualities in which were repugnancy into a fifth which is temperate that is thou shalt in this driness of Calcination reconcile the Mercury with its qualities of cold and moisture to Sulphur with its qualities of heat and driness so shall thy Elements remain at the bottom and thy Exhalations shall cease and the moisture being daily terminated into driness by the ferment of the Body as Milk by Runnit is terminated into Cheese thou shalt have a middle product partaking of the complexion of either Parent But hard it is with thy bare foot to spurn Against a bar of Iron or Steel new acuate For many so do which be infatuate When they such high things take in hand Which they in no wise understand THus we have plainly and faithfully done our duty and by a Line as it were have dissevered the Truth from Falshood yet we know that in the World our Writings shall prove as a curious edged Knife to some they shall carve out Dainties and to others it shall serve only to cut their Fingers yet we are not to be blamed for we do seriously profess to any that shall attempt this Work that he attempts the highest piece of Philosophy that is in Nature and though we write in English yet our Matter will be as hard as Greek to some who will think they understand us well when they misconstrue our meaning most perversly
King and Queen contumulate And joyn'd as one together That which before was two by Fate Is ty'd which none can sever The King begets the Queen with Child Conjunction doth allay Their fury who before were wild Conception both doth slay The King is Brother to his Wife And she to him is Mother One Father is to both whose life Depends upon each other The one when dead the other dyes And both are laid in Grave The Coffin's one in which both lyes Each doth the other save Yet each the other doth destroy And yet both are amended One without t' other hath no joy Both are of one descended Twice fourty days do come and go To which twice five are added These do produce a perfect Crow Whose blackness chears hearts sadded Twice fifteen more produce a Dove Whose wings are bright and tender Twice ten more make the Soul above To need no Fire defender For Soul and Body so combine The Spirit interceding Tincture to give of Silver fine The Soul the Body in leading Also such fixity to add Against the Flames prevailing Which may the Chymist make full glad The Sophister still failing Who seeks in fancies for to find Our Art so much concealed Not duly weighing in his mind That 't is a Fountain sealed Which one thing only can unlock This one thing learn to know Lest you the same event should mock That thing these Lines do shew AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Second Gate Which is DISSOLUTION The Second Gate Opened Which is DISSOLUTION Of Dissolution now will I speak a word or two Which sheweth out what erst was hid from fight And maketh intenuate things that were thick also By virtue of our first Menstrue clear and bright In which our Bodies eclipsed been of light And of their hard and dry compaction subtilate Into their own first Matter kindly retrogradate HAving run through the Chapter of Calcination I now come to handle Dissolution which as I said before is the first beginning of the Spirits activity and it is the first half of the Wheel which turns up the Spirit and down the Body the second hath a contrary operation for it makes the Body active and Spirit passive so then Calcination hides the profundity of the Body which Solution discovereth It is then nothing else but a boiling of hard and dry Bodies in our Mercury in a convenient Fire so long till they be dissolved and made thin then the same Fire makes them fly and flying they condense and return in drops on the Body and moisten it This is Solution and Sublimation together for the Water circulating upon the Body doth soften it and by often returning doth at length bring it to its own nature of moisture In this Resolution according to Artephius the Sun loseth its colour and is darkned and the Moon doth not give her light for all things are turned into their confused Chaos or first Matter in which the Elements with their qualities are hurried together One in Gender they be and in Number two Whose Father is the Sun and the Moon the Mother The mover is Mercury These and no more be Our Magnesia our Adrop and none other Things here be but only Sister and Brother That is to mean Agent and Patient Sulphur and Mercury co-essential to our intent THe cause of this is the Homogeneity of the Matter wherein they agree in essence together with the difference which is between them in Sex they being in the Glass as Male and Female and in ripeness of years one being more mature and by consequent more active to wit the Sun who therefore is the Father the other more crude in comparison of the Sun and so more passive viz. the Moon which therefore is the Mother of our Stone This Mother is our Mercury which for its eminent difference from any other Mercury is called the Moon with its internal true Sulphur which is hidden under its Mercurial form doth first move for at first our Body which is Gold is dead and liveth not till it be quickned by our Mercury then it lives it behoveth thee then to put in thy Body and thy Water and let them stand together and add nothing to them This Composition duly made we call our Magnesia and our Adrop and nothing entreth neither Powder nor Liquor save only these two species which species are the perfect Body and Argent vive These two sprung out of one Root for as I told you the Soul of thy animated Mercury is perfect true Gold yet volatile which by Art may be made to appear in a fixed form so then we joyn Consanguinity with Consanguinity Brother with Sister and make them become together Man and Wife These two by continual Fire do act and re-act the Woman first and then the Man several which then are joyned and make one Hermaphrodite acting one half of each Circulation as a Woman or Spirit and the other half as a Man or Body For each of the two principles have a Sulphur and a Mercuriality the Gold or Body hath its Sulphur external and apparent the Mercury the Spirit hath it internally hidden yet both these are co-essential each to other and in that respect they are the only subjects in the World for our Art Between these two in quality contrarious Ingendred is a mean most marvellous Which is our Mercury and Menstrue unctuous Our secret Sulphur working invisibly More fierce then Fire burning the Body Dissolving Metals into Water Mineral Which Night for darkness in the North we do call FOr with their Homogeneity they have withall such a Contrariety in opposite qualities that they do no sooner feel the Fire but they are stirred up to Work and boiling and circulating in a continual Ebullition or Vapour they do mingle their homogeneal qualities together by reason of which there is a strange medium of an unnatural Fire and a putrefying Bath ingendred then the Sulphur or Fire of the Gold which is the Fire of Nature and the Sulphur of the Water do embrace one another and these two make an unnatural Fire in which the Humidity appears and the Sulphur being hidden to the eye appears in its effects only to sight and that is it burns destroys and conquers the Bodies which common Fire never could do making them to be no Bodies but a Fume of Mineral Vapour and in this Operation the Elements are confused and make our Chaos which is void and dark for here the Lights of the World are eclipsed the Sun is darkned and the Moon sheweth not its light which watrishness of the Compositions for its abundance of moisture and privation of light we call Winter and Night and the North Latitude of our Stone But yet I trow thou understandst not utterly The very secret of Philosophers Dissolution Therefore understand me I counsel thee wittily For the truth I will tell thee without delusion Our Solution is caused of our Congelation For Dissolution on the one side corporal Causeth Congelation on the other
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
or Fiery part of the Body as Light will mix with Light and then the gross part of the Body and of the Water in the bottom of the Vessel will be brought in absence of the Soul and Spirit to putrefie So then these two Fiery Natures being Homogeneous will readily mix and will sublime together in form of a white Smoak or Vapour as saith noble Artephius and there condensing in the top of the Vessel that is about the fides and in the Concave of the Glass will return again and circulate up and down till it have destroyed the solidity of the Body making it no Body but subliming what is subtle and what is earthly and resisting turning into Ashes or an impalpable Powder by Calcination And after Putrefaction is compleat by Circulation the most fixed part which is called the Body of Fixion the essential and most permanent part of both Body and Water will ponderously be lifted up and carried aloft into the Air. And without this Separation and Division all is nothing for this is the very Key of the Mastery it is the cause of Generation therefore in vain is whatever is attempted without this boiling the gross and subliming what is subtle that in the troubles of the stormy Sea which works up and down as the Sea in the mighty Winds what is pure may ascend and whatever is impure may remain at the bottom and when all that is pure is ascended that which is left is called the Earth that remains So Artephius Now to help thee in at this Gate This last secret I will disclose to thee Thy Water must be seven times sublimate Else shall no kindly Dissolution be Nor Putrefaction shalt thou none see Like liquid Pitch nor colours appearing For lack of heat within thy Glass working NOte then that Sublimation which otherwise is called Separation Division Ascension and Descension is the Key of the Work it is placed for the third Gate and yet it is the last and the first the last it is called by Ripley and I to Eccho to his voice assure thee it is the first and last And as the Key of all our Operations is Separation so the Key to it is our true Mercury truly prepared and proportioned as it ought to be Now the proportion of thy Water is in reference to its internal additional Sulphur which is added by the Philosopher which is done by successive Eagles which are made by our Philosophical Arsnick the number of which ought to be seven The darkness vanishing and the light appearing after many showrs before the flight of each Eagle our Water being thus acuated is by Acuation purged and then it becomes powerful in dissolving the Body which will be done with a fewer number of Eagles or a greater but with 7 or 9 most desiredly This acuated Water is also the Instrument which doth move the Gold to putrefie which no other Agent in the World can do for by this the Body is ground softned and mollified the pores of it are opened and the Sulphur invisible is set at liberty which causeth the Body to rot change colours and at length become black like unto melted Pitch But if thou omit any of the number of Eagles or fail in the goodness of thy Arsnick or erre in the preparation of the Water with thy Arsnick either in Conjunction or Purification or Digestion or any other errour of which experience will warn thee do not then expect that the most exact Regimen of heat of thy external Furnace will do the Work Four Fires there be which thou must understand Natural against Nature unnatural also And the Elemental which doth burn the brand These four Fires use we and no moe Fire against Nature must do thy Body woe This is our Dragon as I thee tell Fiercely burning as the Fire in Hell NOw to give thee a touch concerning our Fire which he that knows may well be accounted a Master of our Secrets We have indeed four Fires which is one more than Artephius numbred which yet he intended to include The most noble Fire is Natural which is that which we seek to have multiplied and that is the Sulphur of Gold or rather its Fiery Tincture it is that which we seek for and we use Mercury for Sol his sake Our next Fire is our Fire against Nature and that is the Fire of our Water which is to be corrupted and by this corruption Multiplication is made The third Fire is Unnatural which is the mixture of these two Fires while they are in their action and passion and neither doth actually predominate Now for to give you a reason of these Fires denomination know that Mineral Fire is Sulphur which is hot and dry and it is the death of the Mineral Tree that is it is the cause of coagulating that is taking away the flux of the Mercury which is cold and moist this in Gold is apparent for it is a coagulated perfect Body fixed and permanent in all tryals this it hath from its Fire or Sulphur and this is Natural But now our Water hath an actual and active Sulphur in it and yet quick and fluid a Fire in Water which yet is not burned this Sulphur is true Gold and yet it is volatile this is a Riddle the Philosophers Mystery and yet true this is contrary to Natures ordinary operation in Mineral Bodies Now Nature will always care and provide for her own Child before a Stranger Gold is her own Son and is according to her own Rules but this Mercury is the Son of the Philosopher to whose nativity though Nature contribute her help yet he is out of her ordinary road and through the co-operation of Art and Nature he is for his qualifications an astonishment to Nature hot and dry internally and that actually for it is impregnated with real Sulphur and yet not coagulated but in one word Ignis aqua Gold truly so called and that most pure yet volatile and crude and no abortive not perfect yet left in the way to perfection and yet its virtue active not extinguished This subject Nature finding mixed with her Son the King even Gold by it she endeavours to mend his Constitution and to multiply his virtue for though living Gold be a thing of admirable force yet being out of the ordinary channel of Natures operations Nature doth not mind its preservation much less its propagation These three forenamed Fires are internal secret and invisible but there is one more which we use which is not ours properly for every Sophister hath it and useth it as well as we and that is Culinary Fire which yet is so necessary that without it we can do nothing nor yet without the true knowledge of its due proportion So then we use no Fires of Dung nor of the Sun or of Baths at some Sophisters perswade themselves and others for these are all the Fires which we use With the secret Sulphur that is in our Water which we proportion
exactly in the beginning we open our Body for this Fire can do and doth that which no other Fire can do for it destroys and conquers the Body and makes it no Body but a Spirit So that whatever any Sophisters may suggest our Fire is Mineral it is Sulphur and that pure it is united to the Water in one form and yet hinders not its flux nor corrupts its form This is the true Ignis Gehennae for it Eclipseth the light of the Bodies and makes them become black as Pitch which is a symbol of Hell and for its Cimmerian darkness is by many of the Wise men called Hell Fire of Nature is the third Menstrual That Fire is natural in each thing But Fire occasionate we call unnatural As heat of Ashes and Balnes for putrefying Without these Fires thou mayst nought bring To Putrefaction for to be separate Thy Matters together proportionate OUr natural Fire is as I said the true Sulphur of Gold which in the hard and dry Body is imprisoned but by the mediation of our Water it is let loose by rotting the moles of the Body under which it was detained and after separation of Elements it appears visibly in our third Menstrual For though Gold be a compact and dry Earthy Body none may think that it became what it is without the virtue of a Seed which by perfection is not extinct but sealed up only which Seed is a Fiery form of Light which nothing in the World wanteth and therefore it would be a great Anomalum if it should be only defective in Metals the choice of all sublunary Bodies Betwixt these two Fires in the time of their action and passion one upon another and from another there is made a medium which is part of both which because it is not altogether natural nor wholly against nature is called unnatural The duration of this unnatural Fire is from the time that the Body begins to open and colours to change that is in a word all the time of the rule of Saturn and part of the rule of Jupiter the whole Regimen of Putrefaction and so much of Ablution until the Dove begin to prevail over the Crow which Putrefaction as it is the turning of an intire Wheel so part of it is done in sicco when the Body is all a discontinuous Calx or Ashes and part in humido which is called a Bath when the subsident part is liquid and boils and the superiour part vapours aloft and descends Thus you see how many Fires we have and how they are distinguished wherein I have written what I know and as many as understand me will esteem my Writings highly for without boasting let me assure thee thou hast not such another Directory in the whole World I may speak it without offence being unknown to thee and thou to me This I say not to detract from any Philosopher for many were deeply seen in this Mastery but almost all were envious and the most candid would have judged my plainness deserving an Anathema maranatha I have here laid you so plain demonstrations as I go that you cannot miss if God direct you and without the knowledge of the Fires you are far wide whatever whimsies you have in your head for you shall never see the dissolution of the Body nor shall you ever make black and by consequence you cannot divide Elements as you ought to do because you proportioned not your Matters wisely in the beginning of the Work for Dimidium facti qui bene cepit habet he who makes a good beginning hath as good as half done Therefore make Fire thy Glass within Which burneth the Body much more than Fire Elemental if thou wilt win Our secrets according to thy desire Then shall thy Seed both rot and spire By help of Fire occasionate That kindly after they may be separate TAke then my counsel be not so careful of the Fire of the Athanor as of your Internal Fire seek it in the house of Aries and draw it from the depths of Saturn let Mercury be the Internuncio and your signal the Doves of Diana By the River you shall find a Tree in which is the Nest of 10 Eagles take of them 7 9 or all but take them very white which oft plunging in the River will cause with these you may overcome the Lion The heat of their stomachs is far more powerful than any Fire in the World for in it Gold will be destroyed that thou shalt not know what is become of it which yet loseth nothing from it self though exposed to the greatest violence of any flame Thus with patience thou shalt see thy desire fulfilled and thy heart shall rejoyce for a wide door shall be opened by which thou mayst behold the Mysteries of Nature in all her Kingdoms In 40 or 50 days thou shalt behold the highest sign of most perfect corruption of thy perfect Body which of a dead lump is thus become Seed in which though many cannot believe that there is any active virtue yet it is now to the astonishment of Nature made living and by its life it kills that by which it was made alive and both being mingled make one Bath which by continual decoction moving the Earth and Water below and circulating the Air and Fire above make at last one inseparable quintessence the Father of Wonders Now to God only wise the revealâ—â— of these hidden Mysteries be praise from all his Creatures for ever Of Separation the Gate must thus be won THus I have run through this Gate of Separation which might be enough for it is all but because the Wise men have made many Operations for to hide the secret and have scattered their notions here and there in every Gate oâ— Operation sometimes being at the beginning sometimes at the end thereby to puzzle the unwary I must to make this Treatise intire run through the rest with what brevity and plainness I can I Shall now sing a pleasant Elegy What did betwixt two Lovers Fall out seek the reason why This Song discovers A Wife Did lose her life Because she did her Husband revive Whose death did enforce The man to remorse To see her dead who gave him life He was a King yet dead as dead could be His Sister a Queen Who when her Brother she did breathless see The like was never seen She cryes Vntil her eyes With over-weeping were waxed dim So long till her tears Reach'd up to her ears The Queen sunk but the King did swim These Waters with the Fire which prevail'd Did him so perplex That starting up not knowing what him ail'd He sorely did vex He thought That there was wrought Some Treason but full little did know That it was a Queen Him sav'd though unseen And dy'd her self sad white I trow At length her Carcass when her Gall was broke Rose up to the top From which fum'd up so venomous a smoak His breath which did stop He found Which made him sound
appropriated unto Man so is there in the Generation of our Stone much that may answer to the Generation of Man for as Anatomists do allow the Woman fifteen veins conducing to the act of Venery and Procreation and the Man from whom comes the Male Sperm but five so our Stone in his first Composition requires three parts of the Water or Feminine Sperm to one of Sulphur or the Male so the Artist decocting and Nature perfecting the Mastery will be accomplished with the blessing of God Remember now that the more thy Water is the more ought to be thy Internal Fire to dry it up so then when thou shalt make the proportion of Water to the Sun three to one remember that thy number of Eagles which is the proportion of thy Mercury ought to be nine or at most ten This is the highest Acuation of the Water which is best for such a proportion as for seven Eagles two to one is a very good proportion so hast thou proportionably three Eagles to every one of the Water which is added to the Body Some are so acute as to say that with four Eagles well cleansed the Work may be performed and then the proportion must be as three of the Water to two of the Body but the decoction must needs be longer I never yet tryed it knowing the forenamed proportions will do far better and nine months time is a sufficient waiting for a Philosopher Any shorter way is and would be acceptable but more tedious are very unacceptable since they shew nothing more than quicker ways but protract the time of Putrefaction for from that time the Fire of Nature is at work and then every pondus hath the same period provided the Fire be accordingly and the Matter in the Glass not much over the other for one ounce or two will be far sooner accomplished than five or six ounces therefore we advise all rather to content themselves with one ounce or two at most if an ounce succeed you can wish no more This Chapter I will conclude right soon therefore Gross Conjunction charging thee to make but one For seldom have Strumpets Children ybore And so shalt thou never come by our Stone Without thou let the Woman lig alone That after she have once conceived by the Man Her Matrix be shut up from all other than I Shall soon draw to an end concerning this subject for I trow that thou understandest it fully take heed then to my Doctrine mix thy Water with thy Body in a due quantity and grind them together diligently and when thou hast mixed them shut them up in thy Glass carefully and there let them stand till compleat perfection And after thou hast mixed them and set them to heat be sure thou stir them not much less open them or add any thing to them or take ought from them whatever any Author do seem to advise For if thou do contrary to this my Doctrine thou dost run an extreme hazard of losing all for as it is with Harlots who lying with many men conceive rarely of any so if thou joyn crude Mercury after thy first Conjunction I will not say that it is impossible but very unlikely that ever thou shalt attain our Mastery And what I say of putting in fresh Mercury is to be understood of the Body also for if thou shalt add fresh of that thou wilt destroy all for after thou settest them to the Fire thou must expect Conception that is that the Mercury by ascending and descending will extract part of the seminal virtue out of the reins of the Sun which when she hath done there then stands a relation between the Sun and that Mercury as between Husband and Wife Now other Mercury or other Sol are not as yet so related and therefore they are as a third person which Love abhors Therefore mix thy Matters so judiciously at first that thou need not afterwards to wish for any new addition and close your Vessel well and decoct it carefully For such as evermore add crude to crude Opening their Vessel letting their Matters keel The Sperm conceived they nourish not but delude Themselves and spill their Work each deal If therefore thou have list to do wee l Close up thy Matrix and nourish thy Seed With heat continual and temperate if thou wilt speed THey who shall do otherwise as they discover themselves to be too impatient so they certainly will destroy their Operations For were it no other damage then this that they cool their Seed it is an irreparable errour but over and besides the crude Air will they nill they will get in and being as it is a great enemy to Generation it destroys the germinative and living virtue Then instead of getting profit they reap certain loss and instead of attaining truth they get a delusion for no man that understands himself would do it but he that would open a womans Womb that is conceived to make her bring forth sooner or crack an Egg he would set under a Hen to make it hatch more speedily Therefore as I advised before so I do now and shall make it the â—piphonema of this discourse mix thy Seeds and elaborate them with what pains thou canst then shut them in a house of Glass that is to say an ounce in a Glass that would â—old about 16 ounces or 20 or two ounces in a Glass that would hold two ounces or thereabouts of Water distilled set thy Glass in thy Nest about a 4 th part of it in Sand which must be sisted from Stones Let the Neck be fastned either with a Wyre or set into a hole which may be in the Cover of thy Nest the Neck about 6 inches long or longer a little Let thy Athanor be so that thou mayst give in it what heat thou pleasest and keep it about a day or 16 or 12 hours at least without renewing and yet no sensible alteration in heat In this Furnace thou shalt give thy Matter such a Fire as may within the first day or two cause it to boyl like to a Pot over the Fire or as the stormy Sea swelleth in a mighty Wind from the surface of which there will exhale a Vapour which we call the Winds which are in the belly or womb in the forming of our Embrio which will condense at the top the Glass being strong and run down in drops and this continually night and day without ceasing Thus is verified the saying of the Philosopher that our Stone retaineth life and is perfected that is divided and united and at last fixt and congealed by continual boyling and subliming Thus are thy Waters divided the uppermost part carry aloft the Soul with them and the lowermost boyl and tear and soften the Body and make it more fit for the returning Spirit and Soul to work on in their continual descending And when thy Vessel hath stood by months five And Clouds and Eclipses passed each one The light appearing increase thy
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
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
of increase with their hands filled with sheaves and their mouths with the praises of the Lord thus the chosen or redeemed of the Lord shall return with Songs and everlasting Joy shall be upon their heads and sighing and sorrows shall fly away For first the Sun in his uprising obscurate Shall be and pass the Waters of Noah's Floud On Earth which were a hundred days continuate And fifty away ere all these Waters goed Right so our Waters as Wise men understood Shall pass that thou with David may say Abierunt in sicco flumina bear this away REmember then this Chymical Maxim namely that a sad cloudy morning begins a fair day and a chearfull noon-tide for our Work is properly to be compared to a day in which the morning is dark and cloudy so that the Sun appears not After that the Sky is over-clouded and the Air cold with Northerly winds and much Rain falls which endures for its season but after that the Sun breaks out and shines hotter and hotter till all become dry and then at Noon-day not a Cloud appearing but all clear from one end of the Heaven to the other But our Waters may more fitly be compared to Noah's Floud or Deluge then to a day-showr by reason of their continuance for before our Waters shall all be overcome and dried up by prevailing siccity it will be about 5 months in which time the Artist shall be held in constant horrour according as the Allegory of Arisleus hath it Sed ne poeniteat faciem fuligine pingi Adferet haec Phoebi nigra favilla juâ—ar Wait patiently for thou shalt see the Day-star arising with deliverance and these Waters shall through the command of the Almighty abate Jupiter then shall rule in whose reign all things shall be restored for by constant decoction thy Body shall have virtue to receive Tincture and to retain it and to increase it by which it shall be renewed and shall by little and little digest all the moisture which then shall be unto it as nourishment Milk of Life which we call Virgins Milk Then shalt thou have leisure to contemplate these wonders of the most High which if they do not ravish and astonish thee in the beholding of them it is because God hath not intended this Science to thee in Mercy but in Judgment to wit that it should be unto thee a snare and trap and a stumbling-block at which thou shalt stumble and fall and never rise again Remember then when once thou shalt see the renewing of these Natures that with humble heart and bended knees thou praise and extoll and magnifie that gracious God who hath been nigh unto thee and heard thee and directed thine Operations enlightned thy Judgment for certainly flesh and bloud never taught thee this but it was the free gift of that God who giveth to whom he pleaseth Soon after that Noah planted this Vineyard Which Royally flourished and brought forth Grapes anon After which space thou shalt not be afeard NOw as the Earth when the Waters of the Floud were abated was as it were renewed even so thy Earth is made new and the Rain-bow is to thee a sign that there shall never again happen such another Deluge as thou hast now passed Thy Earth then being renewed behold how it is decked with an admirable green colour which is then named the Philosophers Vineyard This greenness after the perfect whiteness is to thee a token that thy Matter hath re-attained through the will and power of the Almighty a new vegetative life observe then how this Philosophical Vine doth seem to flower and to bring forth tender green Clusters know then that thou art now preparing for a rich Vintage Thy Stone hath already passed through many hazards and yet the danger is not quite over although it be not great for thy former experience may now guide thee if rash joy do not make thee mad For in like wise shall follow the flourishing of our Stone COnsider now that thou art in process to a new Work and though in perfect whiteness thy Stone was incombustible yet in continuing it on the Fire without moving it is now become tender again therefore though it be not in so great danger of Fire now as heretofore yet immoderacy now may and will certainly spoil all and undo thy hopes Govern with prudence therefore during the while that these colours shall come and go and be not either over-hasty nor despondent but wait the end with patience And soon that after thirty days are gone Thou shalt have Grapes right as Ruby red Which is our Adrop our Usifur and our red Lead FOr in a short time thou shalt find that this green will be overcome by the Azure and that by the pale wan colour which will at length come to a Citrine which Citrine shall endure for the space of 46 days Then shall the heavenly Fire descend and illuminate the Earth with inconceivable Glory the Crown of thy Labours shall be brought unto thee when our Sol shall sit in the South shining with redness incomparable This is our Tyre our Baâ—ilisk our red Poppy of the Rock our Adrop our Vsifur our red Lead our Lion devouring all things This is our true Light our Earth glorified rejoyce now for our King hath passed from death to life and now possesseth the Keys of both Death and Hell and over him nothing now hath power For like as Souls after pains tranâ—itory Be brought to Paradise where ever is joyful life So shall our Stone after his darkness in Purgatory Be purged and joyned in Elements withouten strife AS then it is with those who are Redeemed their Old man is crucified in which is sorrow anguish grief heart-breaking and many tears after that the New man is restored and then is joy shouting clapping of hands singing and the like for the ransomed of the Lord shall return with Songs and everlasting Joy shall be on their heads even so it is after a sort in our Operations for first of all our old Body dyeth rots and is as it were corrupted yielding a most loathsome stink and engendring squallid and filthy colours and most venomous exhalations which is as it were the Purgatory of this old Body in which its corruption is overcome by a long and gentle decoction And when it once is purged and made clean and pure then are the Elements joyned and are of four contraries made one perfect perpetual indissolvable unity so that from henceforth there is nothing but concord and amity to be found in all our habitations Rejoyce the whiteness and beauty of his Wife OUr Man then to shew his singular love to his Wife and to give an evident token that they will never fall out any more is content to attain the first degree of its perfection in her colour so that the first stable colour of thy renovate Body after its Eclipsation in blackness is the sparkling white which is a lustre hardly imaginable And
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
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