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
this true Separation is the cause and without it it cannot be made Then Oyl and Water with Water shall distill And through her help receive moving Keep well these two that thou not spill Thy Work for want of due closing And make thy Stopple of Glass melting The top of thy Vessel together with it Then Philosopher lick it is up shit IN this second Circulation which is after Conjunction there shall be no more the Body below and the Spirit above but all shall be one and the Body which is the Sulphur shall always follow the Spirit on the Fire wherever it flys The occasional cause of all this is our first Water which though vile is therefore to be much valued for it is very precious through the virtue of which it comes to pass that our Earth yields a Water and causeth it to fly with the Spirit aloft and is the Soul of our Sol which at length doth allure the said Spirit and Body to union which else would never be and then the Body beyond its own nature is lifted up moving uncessantly with the Spirit and Soul upon the Fire for all now are made one inseparably and this is called the sealing the Mother in the belly of the Infant which she bore that is the Earth below is so united to the Water that arose from it that in this Operation after this true Conjunction they are never more divided but are together sublimed and descend continually moving and altering continually until perfect Complement Now for as much as all the Mastery consists in Vapour which are called the great Winds which are in the Vessel at the forming of this our Embrio therefore great care must be had lest the Spirits exhale Which they will do without the Glass have a strong guard for first they are subtle nor that only but ascend with a great impetus by reason of our Fire which must cause the inferiora ebullire moveri continuò inferiora circulari quolibet momento and thirdly in Putrefaction the Body and Spirits have a most subtle odour which also must be retained For preventing of all thou shalt have thy Stopple as firm as any part of thy Glass which let it be strong as is said and the neck long and strong and let the neck be melted up with a Lamp or with Coals and closed well without much wringing which makes the Glass brittle but being nipt up and after that staying in the same heat turning it to and fro in the clear heat the Glass will come to as exactly close and smooth a superficies as in any other place This is the true and sure way which Philosophers have secured their Glasses by Let it cool by degrees and be very wary that it get no crack in cooling which if it do though never so little you must not connive at it lest the winds within cause it there to burst as being a weak defective place The Water wherewith thou mayst revive thy Stone Look thou distill before thou work with it Oftentimes by it self alone And by this sight thou shalt wit From feculent faeces when it is quit For some men can with Saturn it multiply And such like substance which we defie THus thou seest how our Work must be ordered in reference to its Regimen but the main matter is our Water Which Water as saith Artephius is the Vinegar of Mountains and it is the only Instrument for our Work its Preparation consists in Cohobation which we will discover In my little Treatise called Introitus Apertus and in my other Tractate called Ars Metallorum Metamorphoseâ—s I speak as much of it as a man can speak without giving a Receipt but to the Ingenious what there is written is far better than any Receipt This I say that it must first be cohobated in a very wonderful way for it is such a Cohobation that hath not its like in the World and for several times to a determinate number and after it may and ought to be distilled per se without addition again and again that thou mayst have the Water clean from any Exotical mixture When it ascends like to the Pearled dew thou mayst then know that it is sufficiently pure which is not till all the filthiness be cast from the centre and wash'd from the superficies Thy Water then hath so excellent a Pontick faculty that it will dissolve Jupiter Saturn or Venus into Mercury and Sulphur for it commands Metals as their true Water Mineral which no Mercury in the World is but our Mercury nor can be for Reasons known to the Adepti which if I should give there would be none almost so stupid but would easily apprehend them for they are most demonstrable This only I at present say of this Mercury that it is the Mother of Metals and therefore hath power to reduce them by dividing their principles of Sulphur and Mercury but we count it a loss to imploy our Mercury to such such sordid uses for we spoil the goodness of it hereby Gold only is drowned in it that is it is reduced without division of parts but though the Sulphur and Mercury be for a time distinct yet they will joyn with the Water and together and so remain perpetually which other Metals in their dissolution will not for their Sulphurs being not perfect are rejected to the superficies and never are received to union again for they are Heterogeneous Distill it therefore till it be clean And thin like Water as it should be Like Heaven in colour bright and sheene Keeping both figure and ponderosity There with did Hermes moisten his Tree In his Glass that he made it to grow upright With Flowers discoloured beautiful to sight SO then to return to what we digressed a little from thy Water must be so long distilled until it be very clean for this saith the Philosopher is thy first work to make clean thy Mercury and then into clean Mercury to put clean Bodies for who can expect a pure Generation from that which is unclean The next property of thy Water is that it must be thin even as thin as any other Mercury for if the external proportion be corrupted it is an evident sign that the inward nature is confused It must also be of a very bright colour even like to fine burnished Silver as saith Artephius Hence saith a certain Philosopher that our Water to sight is like to a Coelestial Body Our Water must not be reduced into any limpid Diaphanous liquor as some fondly imagine and as I my self in my time of errours did conceit but it must keep its Mercurial form pure and incorrupted It is also very ponderous so ponderous that it is somewhat more weighty then any other Mercury in the World This is the only one Mercury and there is none in the whole World besides it which can do our Work with this Hermes did moisten his Body and made it to rot and putrefie By means of this Water
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
the Liquor by virtue whereof it is fixed coming away intire both in its Pondus and Virtue This Sulphur in Gold and Silver is pure in the other Metalls less pure Therefore in Gold and Silver it is fixed in others it is fugitive in all the Metalls it is coagulated in Mercury or Argent Vive it is coagulable in Gold Silver and Mercury this Sulphur is so strongly united that the Antients did ever judge Sulphur and Mercury to be all one but we by the help of a Liquor the Invention of which in these parts of the world we owe to Paracelsus though among the Moors and Arabians it hath been and is at this day commonly known to the acuter sort of Chymists By this I say we know that the Sulphur which is in Mercury coagulable and in the Metals coagulated is external to the Internal nature of Mercury and may may be separated in the form of a tincted Metallick Oyl the remaining Mercury being then void of all Sulphur save that which may be called its Inward or Central Sulphur and is now incoagulable of it self though by our Elixir it is to be coagulated but of it self it can neither be fixt nor precipitated nor sublimed but remains un-altered in all corrosive waters and in all digestions of heat One way then of Mercury Azating all Metals and Minerals is by the Liquor Alchahest which out of all such Bodies as have Mercury in their Constitution can separate a running Argent Vive from which Argent vive all its Sulphur is then separated save that only which is Internal and Central to the Mercury which Internal Sulphur of Mercury no corrosive can touch Next to this way of universal Reduction there are also some other particular ways by which Saturn Jupiter Antimony yea even Venus and Mars may be reduced into a running Quick-silver by the help of Salts which because being corporeal they pierce not so radically as the fore-named Liquor doth they therefore do not spoil the Mercury of its Sulphur but that as much Sulphur as there in is Common Mercury so much also there in is this Mercury of the Bodies only this Mercury hath specificated qualities according to the nature of the Metal or Mineral from which it was extracted and for that reason as to our work which is to dissolve perfect Species of Metals it hath no more virtue then common Argent Vive There is than but one only humidity which is applicable unto our Work which certainly is neither of Saturn nor Venus nor is drawn from any thing which nature hath formed but from a substance compounded by the Art of the Philosopher So then if a Mercury drawn from the Bodies have not only the same deficiency of heat and superfluity of faeces as Common Mercury hath but also a distinct specificated form it must by reason of this its form be so much the farther remote from our Mercury then common Argent Vive is Our Art therefore is to compound two Principles one in which the Salt and another in which the Sulphur of Nature doth abound which are not yet perfect nor yet totally imperfect and by consequence may therefore by our Art be changed or exalted which that which is totally perfect cannot be and then by Common Mercury to extract not the Pondus but the Coelestial virtue out of the compound which virtue being Fermental begets in the common Mercury an Off-spring more noble then it self which is our true Hermaphrodite which will congeal it self and dissolve the Bodies Observe but a grain of Corn in which scarce a discernable part is Sprout and this Sprout if it were out of the Grain would die in a moment the whole grain is sown yet the Sprout only produceth the Herb So is it in our Body the Fermental Spirit that is in it is scarce a third part of the whole the rest is of no value yet all is joyned in the composition and the faeculent corporeous parts of the Body comes away with the dregs of the Mercury But beyond the example or similitude given of a grain of Corn it may be observed that the hidden and spiritual virtue of this our Body doth purge and purifie its Matrix of water in which it is sown that is it makes it cast forth a great quantity of filthy earth and a great deal of Hydropical Saline moisture For instance make thy washings for a tryal with pure and clean Fountain water weigh first a Pint of the same water and take the exact weight of it then wash thy compound 8 or 10 Eagles or times save all the faeces weigh thy Body and Mercury exactly weigh thy faeces being very dry then Distil or Sublime all that will Sublime a very little quick Mercury will ascend then put the residue of the faeces in a Crucible set them on the Coals and all the faeculency of the Mercury will burn like a Coal yet without fume when that is all consumed weigh the remaining faeces and thou shalt find them to be two thirds of thy Body the other third being in the Mercury weigh the Mercury which thou Sublimest and the Mercury prepared by it self and the weight of both will not recompence thy Mercuries weight by far So then boyl up thy water to a skin in which thou madest thy Lotions for that is a thick water and in a cool place thou shalt have Crystals which is the Salt of Mercury Crude and no way fit for Medicines Yet it is a content for the Artists to see how the Heterogeneities of Mercury are discovered which no Art save the Liquor of Alchahest can do and that in a destructive not a generative way as this is for this operation of ours is made between Male and Female within their own kind between which there is a Ferment which effecteth that which no other thing in the world could do In all truth I tell you that if you should take our imperfect compound Body per se and Mercury per se and Ferment them alone though you might bring out of the one a most pure Sulphur and out of the other Mercury of Mercury which is the Nut of Mercury yet with these thou couldest effect nothing for Fermental virtue is the wonder of the world and it is by it that water becomes Herbs Trees and Plants Fruits Flesh Blood Stones Minerals and every thing seek then for it only and rejoyce in it as in a deservedly invaluable treasure Now know that Fermentation works or ferments not out of kind neither do Salts Ferment Metals Wilt thou then know whence it is that some fixt Alcalies do extract a Mercury out of Minerals and out of the more imperfect Metals Consider then that in all these Bodies the Sulphur is not so radically mixt and united as it is in Silver and Gold Now Sulphur is of kin to divers Alcalies that are extraordinarily dissolved or melted with it and by this means the Mercurial parts are disjoyned and the Argent vive is
Metalline Bodies they yet either joyn Males with Males or else Females with Females or else they work on each alone or else they take Males which are charged with natural inabilities and Females whose Matrix is vitiated Thus by their own inconsideration they frustrate their own hopes and then cast the blame upon the Art when as indeed it is only to be imputed to their own folly in not understanding the Philosophers I know many pitiful Sophisters do dote on many Stones Vegetable Animal and Mineral and some to those add the fiery Angelical Paradaical Stone which they call a Wonder-working Essence and because the mark they aim at is so great the ways also by which they would attain their scope they make also agreeable that is a double way One way they call Via Humida the other they call Via Sicca to use their languages The latter way is the Labyrinthian path which is fit only for the great ones of the earth to tread in the other the Daedalean Path an easie way of small cost for the poor of the world to enterprize But this I know and can testifie that there is but one way and but only one Regimen no more colours than ours and what we say or write otherwise is but to deceive the unwary For if every thing in the world ought to have its proper causes there cannot be any one end which is produced from two wayes of working on distinct Principles Therefore we protest and must again admonish the Reader that in our former writings we have concealed much by reason of the two ways we have insinuated which we will briefly touch There is one Work of ours which is the Play of Children and the Work of Women and that is Decoction by the Fire and we protest that the lowest degree of this our work is that the matter be stirred up and may hourly circulate without fear of breaking of the Vessel which for this reason ought to be very strong but our lineal Decoction is an Internal Work which advances every day hour and is distinct from that of outward heat and therefore is both invisible and insensible In this our work our Diana is our body when it is mixed with the water for then all is called the Moon for Laton is whitened and the Woman bears rule our Diana hath a wood for in the first days of the Stone our Body after it is whitened grows vegetably In this wood are at the last found two Doves for about the end of three weeks the Soul of the Mercury ascends with the Soul of the dissolved Gold these are infolded in the everlasting Arms of Venus for in this season the confections are all tincted with a pure green colour These Doves are circulated seaven times for in seaven is perfection and they are left dead for they then rise and move no more our Body is then black like to a Crows Bill for in this operation all is turned to Powder blacker than the blackest Such passages as these we do oftentimes use when we speak of the Preparation of our Mercury and this we do to deceive the simple and it is also for no other end that we confound our operations speaking of one when we ought to speak of another For if this Art were but plainly set down our operations would be contemptible even to the foolish Therefore believe me in this that because our works are truly natural we therefore do take the liberty to confound the Philosophers work with that which is purely Natures work that so we might keep the simple in ignorance concerning our true Vinegre which being unknown their labour is wholly lost Let me then for a close say only thus much Take our Body which is Gold and our Mercury which is seven times acuated by the marriage of it with our Hermaphroditical body which is a Chaos and it is the splendor of the Soul of the God Mars in the Earth and water of Saturn mix these two in such a Pondus as Nature doth require in this mixture you have our invisible Fires for in the Water or in the Mercury is an active Sulphur or Mineral Fire and in the Gold a dead passive but yet actual Sulphur Now when that Sulphur of the Gold is stirred up and quickned there is made between the Fire of Nature which is in the Gold and the Fire against Nature which is in the Mercury a Fire partly of the one and partly of the other for it partakes of both and by these two Fires thus united into one is caused both Corruption which is Humiliation and Generation which is Glorification and Perfection Now know that God only governs this way of the Internal Fire Man being ignorant of the progress thereof only by his Reason beholding its operations he is able to discern that it is hot that is that it doth perform the actions of heat which is Decoction In this Fire there is no Sublimation for Sublimation is an Exaltation But this Fire is such an Exaltation that it is Perfection it self and that beyond it is no progress All our Work then is only to multiply this Fire that is to circulate the Body so long until the Virtue of the Sulphur be augmented Again this Fire is an invisible Spirit and therefore not having Dimensions as neither above nor below but every where in the Sphere of the activity of our Matter in the Vessel So that though the material visible substance do sublime and ascend by the action of the Elemental heat yet this Spiritual Virtue is always as well in that which subsides in the bottom as in that which is in the upper part of the Vessel For it is as the Soul in the Body of Man which is every where at the same time and yet bounded or terminated in none This is the Ground of one Sophism of ours viz. when we say that in this true Philosophical Fire there is no Sublimation for the Fire is the Life and the Life is a Soul which is not at all subject to the dimensions of Bodies Hence also it is that the opening of the Glass or cooling of the same during the time of Working kills the Life or Fire that is in this secret Sulphur and yet not one Grain of the matter is lost The Elemental Fire then is that which any Child knows how to kindle and govern but it is the Philosopher only that is able to discern the true inward Fire for it is a wonderful thing which acts in the Body yet is no part of the Body Therefore the Fire is a Coelestial Virtue it is uniformed that is it is always the same until the period of its Operation is come and then being come to perfection it acts no more for every Agent when the end of its action is come then rests Remember then that when we speak of our Fire which sublimes not that thou do not mistake and think that the moisture of the Compound which is within
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
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
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
set which being Seal'd up with Hermes Seal the Glass having a neck about 6 fingers high or thereabouts which being thin and narrow is melted together Artificially that no Spirits can get out nor no Air can come in in which respect it is named a secret Den. Also it is called a secret Den because of the secretness of Ashes or Sand in which in a Philosophical Athanor it is set the doores being firmly shut up and a prospect left to look in by a Window either to open a little as much as is convenient sometimes as occasion requires or else with Glass put into it to admit the view of the Artist together with a light at hand to shew the colours His Cave with blasts of fumous Air he all bewhited then WHich Glass Nest and Furnace being thus secretly ordered the Artist must in the first place expect to be in Prison a long time as Bernard Trevisan saith for the Concave of this secret place will be so bewhited with the fumes which ascend that an Artist rules his work more by skill and reason or the eye of the mind then of the Body for the Spirits arising like a smoak or Wind sticketh to the Concave of the Glass which is above the Sand or Ashes and there by degrees there grow drops which run down and moisten the Body below and reduce as much as they can of the fixed and so the Body by the Water and the Water by the Body alter their colours And from the which in space a Golden Humour did ensue IN so much that at length the whole Vessel will seem as though it were all over gilded with Gold for the exhalations will be Yellow which is a sign of true Copulation of our Man Woman together but before this Yellow and with it there will be an obscuring of the White brightness of the Fume with mixture of Colours Dark obscure and Blewish The space is not long for all the several passages are conspicuous before 40 days for in that space from these Colours are demonstrating Signs of Corruption and Generation which is given us by the biting and fiery Nature of our pontick Waters and the resistance of our Bodies in which Fight the Body is over-come and killed and dying yields these Colours which is a Sign that the Eagles now are getting the Mastery and that our Lyon hath also a little infected them with his Carcass which they begin to prey upon This Operation is by Ingenious Artists called Extraction of Natures and Separation for the Tincture begins now to be separated from the Body Also Reduction to the first matter which is Sperm or Seed which by reason of its double Nature is compared to two Dragons I shall not enlarge in this Vision but briefly unfold what is briefly laid down Whose falling drops from high did stain the soyl with ruddy hue THese colours of the Mercury do affect the subsident fixed Body with sutable colours and the Bodies from these exhalations be Tincted with a ruddy colour which Flamel expresseth to this purpose that these two Natures or Dragons do bite one another very cruelly and never leave from the time they have seised one upon another till by their slavering Venom and mortal hurts they be all of a gore bloud and then being stewed in their own Venom are changed into a fifth Essence And when his Corps the force of vital breath began to lack BUt before the renovation of these Natures they must in the first place pass through the Eclipse both of the Sun and Moon and the darkness of Purgatory which is the Gate of Blackness and after that they shall be renovated with the light of Paradise This Allegorically is called Death â—or as a man will resist violence which intrencheth upon his life as long as he can but if his Enemies are many and mighty at length they grow too mighty for him and he begins to fail both in strength and courage and so Paleness the Harbinger of Death doth stand as it were on his lips so our Body or Man the Sun like a strong Champion doth resist long till he be wounded and bleed as it were all over and then dies at whose death blackness doth begin to appear as of old the Ravens were foretellers of Mans death approaching for this Reiteration of Rotation of the Influences of the Heaven of it together with Heat still drying up and soaking in the Moisture as fast as it falls brings it at last naturally to die and corrupt as any other thing doth And then the Corps begin to lack breath that is the Fumes begin to cease for with oft ascending and descending the Spirits are somewhat fixed and turned into Powder or Dust and are now in the bottom of the Vessel drawing fast to Putrefaction Nor do they for a time ascend but remain below Wherefore govern your Fire that your Spirits be not so exalted and climb so high that the Earth want them and they return no more For this Operation is as Morien saith a drawing out of Water from the Earth and again a returning of the same to the Earth so often and so long till the Earth putrefie This dying Toad became forthwith like Coal for colour black THis is the final end of the Combat for herein in this Earth of Leaves all are reconciled and final Peace is made and now one Nature embraceth another in no other form but in the form of a Powder impalpable and in no other colour but black of the blackest From henceforth Natures are united and boil and bubble together like melted Pitch and change their forms one into another Take heed therefore lest instead of Powder Black of the Blackest which is the Crows Bill you have an unprofitable dry half red Precipitate Orange-coloured which is a certain sign of the Combustion of Flowers or Vertue of the Vegetative Seed On this very Rock I have stumbled and do therefore warn you Thus drowned in his proper Veins of poysoned Flood IT appears by all that hath been said and by the undoubted Testimony of all Philosophers who have been Eye-witnesses to this Truth that the work is not so tedious nor so chargeable but that in the simple way of Nature the Mastery is to be attained for when once the true body is Impasted with its true Leven it doth calcine it self and dissolve it self for the dissolution of the Body into a black and changeable coloured Water which is the sign of egression of the Tincture is the Congelation of the Spirits into this lowest Period of Obscurity which is this black Powder like unto Lamp-Black this is the Complement of Eclipsation which Contrition begins soon after the Colours Yellowish Blewish c. For term of Eighty Days and Four he rotting stood THis Calcination begins with these Variations in Colour about the two and fortieth day or fiftieth at the farthest in a good Regimen After which comes putrefying Corruption like to the Scum of boiling bloody Broath
veste Dianam sciens loquor I know I speak true which the Sons of Art do know and can testifie with me Magnesia also THis Stone is by the Philosophers called their Magnesia their Adrop c. with many more names and is indeed their Stone in the first true mixture of the true matter for it is the true seed and will produce with the co-operation of external Fire in a patient expectation of the time of Nature which is not long to him that understands it Of Sulphur and Mercury FOr that which is done by Nature in many years and ages in the bowels of the Earth decocting Mercury alone without addition Art to make the work short first impregnates Mercury with a spiritual seed of Sulphur by which it becomes powerful in the dissolution of Metals and then adds to it mature Sulphur by which the work is shortened and out of these two Parents of one Root is brought forth a Noble Son of a Regal Off-spring that is not simply Gold but our Elixir ten thousand times more precious Proportionate by Nature most perfectly YEt all this Work of the Artist is only to help Nature we can do no more yea we have professed and will profess that we do only administer unto Nature herein for all the Works of God are intire we can but behold them and admire them and therefore we seek our Principals where Nature is and amend Nature in its own Nature Nor do we make the simple believe which is the Trade of Sophisters that we by our Extractions and Manual Operations upon Vegetables Minerals Urines Hair or the like intend to make our so highly prized Elixir but out of such things in which Nature hath put it we by Art do make it appear by revealing what was hidden and hiding what was manifest But many one marvelleth and marvel may and museth on such a marvellous thing WHereas those who work upon other matters than the true do betray their ignorance herein most foully that they do not consider the possibility of Nature but work after their Fancy as though out of combustible substances filthy in their nature and made up of Heterogeneities might be produc'd a pure perfect Metallick Substance by reason of its unseverable Unity invincible and by vertue of its transcendent Excellency cleansing and fixing all leporous and fugitive bodies in the Mineral Kingdom and reducing them to the Anatical proportion of perfectly digested Sol or Luna according to the quality of the Medicine When therefore their Principles are not sound their Conclusion is always deceitful and then they not knowing Nature in her Operation but interpreting the words of the crafty and envious Philosophers according to the Letter do stand admiring at the Unconformity of their Work to the Promises of the Philosophers at least as they understand their Books they admire what this Stone is if it be a Truth or a Conceit and why they as well as any do not attain it if possible Such meditations usually fill the minds of unsuccessful Alchymists who though they be as they esteem themselves very Judicious yet cannot stumble upon this unhappy Stone What is our Stone c. THey marvel at the uncouth difficulty of the thing nor can they almost tell what to judge of what they read forasmuch as all Philosophers say it is a very easie thing For Fowls and Fishes to us do it bring every Man it hath And it is in every place in thee in me c. ANd in very deed the Antient Wise Men have so written and do still write the same as to wit That it is found in a Dunghil according to Morien and for the easiness of the charge they all write plentifully so that in respect of time and cost Artephius and Flammel say it is but the play of Children and work of Women and therefore one Excellent Philosopher writing of this Mastery titles his Treatise Ludus Puerorum that is Childrens Play To this I answer That Mercury it is I wis YEt trust me though the wise men thus write and it be true there is notwithstanding something to be added to their Sentence according as the Author of Novum Lumen well observed as namely That this Art is easie to him that understands it as Artephius plainly expresseth but to him that is ignorant of it there is nothing can appear so hard The Wise Man saith Sendivogius finds it in a Dunghil but the Fool cannot believe that it is in Gold I for my part through the great mercy of God to me an unworthy and unthankful Creature I know the Art to be true and not that only but also very easie and I wonder that men of so great parts have studied for it so long in vain only this I am confident of it is the gift of God nor is it in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in God that giveth mercy In which respect I am bold to the glory of God to confess that I have the Art and have Natures Operations in these so hidden Secrets before mine eyes at this present writing which I see hourly with admiration of the infinite Glory in the beholding of such a great Glory in the Creatures which trust me will ravish the Beholder to see such a despised Infant as our Mercury is to grow into so strong a Heroe which the World cannot purchase But not the Common called Quick-silver by name YEt the difficulty is not over when once it is known that the whole Secret consisteth in Mercury for what more frequent among the Sophisters than to cry Our Mercury c. and yet in the Work of Nature they are as blind as Moles The cause is for that Nature hath produced a Mineral Juice in the bowels of the Earth which doth answer to most of the Philosophical Descriptions of their Water as namely that it is mineral quick current without humectation ponderous and the like which when the vulgar Alchymists read they apply it to this naughty Mercury which for inward Qualities hath nothing in it like ours Some there are who trusting to the Sentence of most of the Wise Men who have written concerning this Art do reject Mercury vulgar in word when as indeed they dote as much upon it as others whenas by their mock-purgations they handle Mercuries divers ways by Sublimation Precipitation Calcination Manual even to a black substance like to Soot or Lamp-black by distillation from sundry Faeces after grinding with Vinegar by Calcination with Waters-fort by Lotions innumerable changing Mercury into sundry forms and after quickning him By all which Operations they imagine themselves secure of the Secret of our Mercury whenas all such ways indeed are but Sophisms and yet Mercury so abused is one and the same vulgar Mercury So that upon this Rock more have stumbled than upon any other yet will stumble till they know how to distinguish our Mercury from Common and our preparations from that of the vulgar Sophisters which have no
likeness one to another But Mercury without which nothing being is FOr our Mercury is Essential and Radical to our Body and partakes of the nature of it intirely and therefore it is said to be that Mercury without which nothing is for all things are distinguished by Philosophers by three Principles although some Simples have not three but only by Analogy among which the most essential is Mercury for the humidity of all things concrete is called their Mercury which is most intire to all things forasmuch as all things owe their beginning unto Water So then as the proper specifick Mercury of all things is so Essential unto them that nothing is without it so our Mercury is so consubstantial with our Body that it is one in kind with that Mercury of which it was by coagulation concrete which vulgar Mercury is not and therefore the Body is incrudate by this Mercury and sends forth its Seed by mixture with it through the co-operation of requisite temperate external heat All Philosophers record and truly sain the same TRuly this I could confirm by infinite Testimonies of Philosophers since there never wrote any who was indeed a true Artist but he hath affirmed the same Geber Artephius Haly Roâ—â—nus Flammel Sendivogius the Author of the Rosary Trevisan with many others which would be very tedious to name So that indeed this Work of mine I wrote not because enough hath not been written before for I do but eccho to the Voice of all Philosophers who have left upon record such clear Testimonies of the co-operation of Art and Nature herein that if Wit were capable of this attainment the Art would have been common ere now and I do verily admiringly adore the Wisdom of God herein that an Art so true so natural so easie so much desired and sought after should yet â—e so rarely found that the generality of Men Learned and Unlearned do laugh at it as a Fable it is therefore most certainly the Gift of God who is and ever will be the Dispenser of it according to his good pleasure But simple Searchers putteth them in blame saying they hid it MOst injurious are they therefore to the well-deserving Philosophers who because they cannot understand their Writings and through the mis-understanding of the possibility of Nature do commit foul mistakes in their operations and therefore reap a ridiculous Harvest they then blame the falsity of Authors or at least accuse their difficult writing not considering that Philosophers owe them nothing and whatever they write for the information of the studious it is not of debt nor yet of Covetousness for they possess the greatest Treasure in the World nor lastly of Ambition for many suppress their names it is of Love therefore and of desire to be helpful to the Studious which Love to requite with reproaches is a â—â—ken of great ingratitude Moreover it is to be understood that the most wise GOD hath a ruling hand herein and all Sons of Art have their Commission as it were given them they write and teach according to that permission which the Creator of all things hath given them I may speak it experimentally that when my self have had one intent I have been so over-swayed with unpremeditated thoughts in the very writing that I have taken notice of the immediate hand of God therein by which I have been carried beyond what I intended And truly it is not our intent to make the Art common to all kind of men we write to the deserving only intending our Books to be but as Way-marks to such as shall travel in these paths of Nature and we do what we may to shut out the unworthy Yet so plainly we write that as many as God hath appointed to this Mastery shall certainly understand us and have cause to be thankful unto us for our faithfulness herein This we shall receive from the Sons of this Science whatever we have from others therefore our Books are intended for the former we do not write a word to the latter But they be blame-worthy which be no Clerks and meddle with Philosophy MOreover we write not our Books for the information of the illiterate as though any vulgar mechanick Distiller Alchymist or Sophister should readily carry away the Golden Fleece or as though any covetous man who makes Gain his utmost end should readily gather the Apples of the Hesperides nor yet that any though Learned should by once or twice overly and slight reading as the Dogs lap the Water of Nilus straight-way be made a Philosopher Nay verily the majesty of this Science forbids so great impiety it is the gift of God and not of Men Our Books are for those who have been or intend to be conversant about the search of Nature we hint the way prayer to God and patient persisting in the use of means must open these Doors Let therefore profound Meditation accompanied with the Blessing of God Furnaces Coals Glasses and indefatigable pains be thy Interpreters and let them serve for Commentaries upon our Writings So I did so I advise thee and the Blessing of God attend all studious vertuous Searchers in this way But though it Mercury be YEt is not the knot untied nor difficulties overcome when once a man hath learned to sing this thredbare Song in Philosophy Est in Mercurio quicquid quaerunt sapientes for what Sophister who cannot make so great a clatter in these general terms as a son of Art the greatest difficulty is to know what this Mercury is that is so desirable and effectual Yet wisely understand wherein it is and where thou shalt it seek THerefore let me advise every studious Searcher of this hid Science to consider warily with himself what he seeks and would find nor that only but in what he would find it for trust me it is not in this Science as some do imagine that our Arcanum may be made out of any thing nor yet out of any base thing But in the knowing of the true Principle consists the first true step to Perfection according to the Poet Dimidium facti qui bene coepit habet Else I counsel thee take not this work in hand BUt he who knows not this our Ocean in which our Water hath its flux and reflux and our Fountain out of which he may draw this Water for his use let him forbear this as a most dangerous Science for he may only expect loss in it but no profit For Philosophers flatter Fools with fair speech NOr let any expect comfortable Direction in our Books who know not the true Matter nor the true Keys by which our Matter is brought forth from darkness into the light for verily though we write for the inlightning of a son of Art yet also for the fatal blinding of all such Owls and Bats who cannot behold the light of the Sun nor can indure the splendor of our Moon To such we propound rare tricks suiting to their sordid fancy to the covetous an easie
way without expence in an inconsiderable time to the lazy Book-men a play without tedious toil to the unstable rash hasty multiplicity of Distillations But listen to me for truly I will thee teach BUt to thee supposing thy qualifications to be Honesty Secresie Studiousness and Indefatigableness we will shew the Truth yet so that it may be hid from the Vulgar yet plain enough to an industrious attentive Reader Which is this Mercury most profitable PHilosophers have hidden much under the Homonymium of Mercury so that it is no hard matter for those that peruse their Books to mistake them yea as many as God will have excluded from this Art shall certainly mistake For many things are by them named by the name of Mercury which are altogether useless in this Mastery and many Processes have they deciphered which themselves never did I for my part shall not tread in their metaphorical steps but shall herein candidly follow the path of profound Ripley whose Text I annex to my Discourse as I go because it is an elaborate Piece in excellent Method on whom I do not so much comment for I write mine own experimental Knowledge but rather intend this Treatise for a Light to that excellent Light in Alchymy these Labours of mine being intire of themselves Only to help thee to my utmost I have confined my Discourse to his Method which I might as other Philosophers have done have scattered here and there confusedly Being to thee nothing deceiveable AS then I have chosen Ripley's Method to follow so will I imitate his Ingenuity and do solemnly profess not to be deceiveable to thee in any thing though I shall not so unfold the Mysteries that bare reading shall suffice to shew the unveiled Diana Know therefore assuredly that when the Philosophers say That their Matter is every where c. This they speak only for the blinding of all such who taking the Philosophers meaning according to the bare sound of their words do reap Trifles instead of Treasures I shall therefore let you understand that this subject of the Philosophers is considered either in reference to its Matter or formal Vertue in reference to the former it is a concrete of Water as all other Compounds are in respect of the latter it participates of a Celestial Virtue and that in a high degree in both respects It is said to be in every place for the original matter which is Water passeth equally through the whole Family of Concretes and for the celestial Influence it is so universal that nothing is hidden from the heat of it so that indeed in this sence it is said to be every where Moreover the Stone being the System of the great World doth in some way or other represent every thing which is or can be perceived by man I mean in reference to some or other operation colour or quality and therefore the Wise have described it almost by all things imaginable for to every thing in some or other circumstance it hath resemblance It is more near in some things than in some YEt to speak properly for information and not to conceal the Secret we profess that there is but one kind in which our Stone is found and in number two understand me not as the Philosopher finds things in his first laborious Preparation for so one of the two subjects which being of one kind enter the supernatural work of Generation of our fiery Stone I say our crude Sperm flows from a Trinity of Substances in one Essence of which two are extracted out of the Earth of their Nativity by the third and then become a pure milky Virgin like Nature drawn from the Menstruâ—â—â— of our sordid Whore Take heed therefore what I to thee write ANd now I call God to witness that I will shew you a great Mystery our Stone is in one part of a perfect nature which we would exalt into a more then most perfect and for this end we stand in need of our true Fountain which I have elsewhere described and shall not now repeat This Fountain hath three Springs and these are three Witnesses which â—estifie to the Artist of the truth of his proceedings these are the Spirit the Water and the Blood and these three agree in one the Water is a Mercurial Bond which the Sophisters can behold so far as the outward shell reacheth but the wise man can behold his hidden secret Centre the Blood is of our Green Lyon which is indeed the greenest or rawest of the three for it hath no manner of Metalline Sulphur no not a grain and therefore is Totally Volatile and it is more raw than the common Water and yet it is called the Blood for a most secret reason because it is the feat of the Life which is the Spirit as Blood in man is the seat of his Life yea the Spirit by this Soul of our Green Lyon is made manifest and is united to it so that though it be very green or unripe yet that inhabits it which is both pure and ripe and can and will digest it with the Water and make both become life with life Now the Spirit is nothing else but a Chaos the Wonder of the Wonders of God which every man almost hath and knows it not because as it appears to the World it is compact in a vile despised form yet is it so useful that in humane Affairs none can want it to the Philosopher it appears united to the Blood that is of our Green Lyon which truly is not a Lyon till the spirit be joyned with it and then it is made able to devour all Creatures of its kind And these three agree in one they are not absolutely one mark that our Fire is not of the matter and yet it is united with the matter as if it were of one form with it and there is an agreement in one though not a radical union for the spirit which is the Fire is separable from the Water and the Blood and then is our Lyon actually Green but ceaseth then to be our Lyon but is the true matter to multiply Emeraulds more glorious than natural For if to thee Knowledge never come Therefore yet shalt thou me not twite ANd now indeed if any be ignorant let him be ignorant I know not what more to say and not transgress the silence of Pythagoras I have told you that our matter is two-fold crude and fixed the fixed is by Nature perfected to our hands and we need only to have it made more then most perfect which Nature alone could never perform nor is there any thing that can thus exalt Tinctures but our dissolving Water which I told you floweth from three Springs the one is a common Well at which all draw and of which Water many use this Well hath in it a Saturnine drossiness which make the Waters unuseful these frigid superfluities are purged by two other Springs through which the Water of this Well is artificially
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
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
inclination BUt all this is not enough to declare our Calcination for Operation follows Preparation and he that doth not before he begin to work prepare his Matters and set true Agent and Patient together it is not his Regimen that can or will produce any thing Therefore first you must know that we joyn kind with kind in our work for Nature is mended and retained with its own Nature for this cause is our King wedded to the Water-bearers Daughter of which Water-bearer I told you that his Body his Pitcher and the Water in it are all one and his Daughter was the Queen which arose out of the water in which was seen a Lamp burning Wonder not at it that a Queen should spring out of a Wâ—â—ter-bearers loins for the King is the 〈◊〉 Son and he is greater then both For know that in this place there is nothing so hard to get as Water which cannot be brought but by him that hath the Keys of the whole Kingdom Take this then for a great secret our Water-bearer is Father to the King and Queen the King being at perfect years is at his own dispose and enjoys more Riches then his Father but his Father hath the Key of a Closet in which is Riches enough for all in the Kingdom to make every Subject as rich as the King but the dispose of this wealth the King only is to have yet can he not have it in his possession till he marry his Sister which is in the water of the Pitcher invisible This his Sister is also his Mother and his Father for it is one with the Water-bearer the Water and the Pitcher as is said By reason of his Consanguinity the King embraceth his Sister very desirously and she by his embraces appears as a Queen and then the Water-bearer and his Water and Pitcher vanish and the King and 〈◊〉 remain alone at length both King 〈◊〉 Queen are drowned after the immoderate use of Venery and violent sweating weeping and pissing which sweat tears and urine do make one Sea in which swim two Fishes without flesh and bones which after resolve and make one Broth which is called Water permanent Who knoweth not this in knowledge is blind He may forth wander as mist in the wind Wotting never with profit where to light Because he understands not our words aright THus though I have somewhat Metaphorically deciphered our true principles yet so plainly as that you may with diligence understand the meaning and unless you know this you will proceed blind-fold in your work not knowing the causes of things so that every puff of Sophisters will toss you like as a Feather is tossed in the Air with a blast of wind for our Books are full of obscurity and Philosophers write horrid Metaphors and Riddles to them who are not upon a sure bottom which like to a running Stream will carry them down head-long into despair and errors which they can never escape till they so far understand our writings as to discern the subject Matter of our secrets which being known the rest is not so hard Joyn kind therefore with kind as good reason is For every Burgeon answers his own seed Man getteth Man a Beast a Beast I wis Further to treat of this it is no need But understand this point if you will speed Each thing is first Calcin'd in his own kind This well conceiv'd fruit therein shalt thou find STep therefore not one step further till you have learned this Lesson namely to wed Consanguinity with Consanguinity and consider well what it is you desire to produce and according to that let be your intention Take the last thing in your Intention for the first thing in your Principles this is according to Nature and it is the true ground of all Generation for out of kind nothing doth engender a Man begetteth a Man and not a Lion nor doth a Lion beget a Sheep a Rose doth not produce a Thorn nor a Nettle a Gilliflower and so if need were I could particularly demonstrate it throughout all Vegetable Animal and Mineral Bodies but it is so plain a thing that I need say no more but leave it with you as the Foundation-stone on which you shall build whatever you intend Attempt nothing out of its own nature and kind lest you reap a fancy instead of truth Whatever you intend to increase by way of Multiplication attempt it only in its own kind and so in this work especially in which Calcination is the mingling of Seminal influence which must be done in the same way of homogeneity If you apprehend this in its cause aright and know how to apply this doctrine in your operation as you ought in this you will find great benefit and a door hereby opened to the discovery of greater Mysteries And we make Calx unctuous black white and red ANd now the opportunity of this discourse leads me to handle our Magical Calxes know that we do Calcine three times in our work of which the general principle is that our Calxes are not combust powders but unctuous for in them we innoble the Sulphurs which are the Basis of Radical Humidity which Raymund calls Oyls and Unguents So then our Calxes are one in kind and do only differ in colour and maturity Our first is black of the blackest and is called Saturn our second white of the whitest and is called Luna our third is red of the reddest and is called Sol. Of three degrees or our Base be perfite THese Calxes are the periods of so many Circulations and have so many degrees allowed to each of them our first Circulation confounds the Elements our second renews the Air and the third exalts the Fire and then is our Stone perfect Flexible as Wax else stand they in no stead OUr Calxes thus graduated are distinguishable from all the Calxes in the world first in that they are done without any laying on of hands secondly from their exquisite subtilty of parts for they are finer then Atoms of the Sun joyned with an eminent Humidity by reason of which to the astonishment of the beholders they flow like unto melted Wax the first in the Glass by continuance of heat and so the second as not being come to their period of perfection and the second and third upon a plate of hot Metal or on a melted Metal or on Mercury heated so long till it is ready to fly By right long process as Philosophers do write A year we take or more for our respite For in less space our Calxes will not be made Able to tyne with Tincture that will not fade WHich last Calxes as they are the period of Arts skill and Natures power in this thing so they are a considerable time in perfecting the former in five months viz. the white and the red in nine months and a half which is the true time and a month we allow for the preparing of our Materials and three months for Fermentations and Imbibitions
so that our whole Operation is above a year For indeed it is not an ordinary thing that we expect but a Fire-abiding Tincture which is unfading and incorruptible which cannot be expected in a short time yet verily the Industry of the Work-man may forward or set back his Work a month two or three according to his more exquisitely preparing of his Matters and governing of his Fire whose exact Regimen is for speed or retarding of the Work almost all in all And for thy proportion thou must beware For therein mayst thou be beguil'd Therefore thy Work that thou not mar AFter the knowledge of the true material Subject and its Preparation the next main thing to be understood is the mystery of Proportion which is a secret of no light concernment for many erre therein Thou shalt therefore understand that our Proportion is two-fold Internal and External the Internal pondus is a Labyrinth in which all erre who know our Subject as many do but not its Proportion He who would effect any thing must principally learn this which is set down in Golden words in Bernard Trevisan his Treatise of the Chymical Miracle The Sulphur saith he which is in the Mercury and predominates not is the Fire alone which governs the whole Work and he therefore that in these things would be a skilful Artist let him know how much Fire is beyond other Elements in subtilty and what a proportion of it will overcome all the rest These Golden words worthy to be ingraven in Marble are the true foundation of our pondus With Mercury as much then so subtil'd One of the Sun two of the Moon Till all together like pap be done BUt there is an External proportion which is as necessary as the other or else the Work will either for lack or excess of moisture be destroyed and that is thus Take thy Body which without any equivocation is most pure Gold let it be exquisitely purged then filed or laminated or calcined with Mercury as is vulgarly known of this take one part and of our Water which is without equivocation Argent-vive animated which then we call our Luna two parts mix them together in an Amalgama and grind them in a Mortar of Glass or on a Marble till they become very soft and all the grettiness of the Body be subtilized with the Mercury that they may seem to be one pap or paste which we call Inceration Then make the Mercury four to the Sun Two to the Moon as it should be NOw pluck up your attention for my speech will be difficult When your Body to your Mercury in outward proportion is one to two then must your Mercury in its inward proportion be just opposite that is four to two else you shall never make Harmony that is good Musick for do not think it is all one with one and the same proportioned Mercury to put either one of the Body to two of the Water or one to three or two to three or three to four no verily till you come to this to measure your Lamp clibanically to your Furnace you are yet in the dark for Practice though you may be true in Theory I almost tremble to speak of this point for it is the very wilde of all those who study this Art and cannot come to the end of their desires for want of true information in this particular Know then that when thy Mercury is to Sol in external pondus two to one it must be as I said in respect of its own internal qualities four to the Sun to two of the Moon therefore saith Artephius that our Water is of kin to the Sun and to the Moon but more to the Sun then to the Moon Note this well that is four to two as Ripley hath it This is indeed a great secret which hath befooled many Now know that our Eagles duly prepared are accommodated to the Sun from three to ten so that four to the Sun will be just seven and thy Mercury thus proportioned let it be two of the Moon to one of its Body Know also that our Water is not called the Moon but in or in reference to conjunction and so let the Moon be two In reference to its one Constitution it is called Mercury for so it ought to be in that form and flux and so it ought to be four to the Sun that is seven Eagles which are to the Sun not before three to which adding four you make seven And thus thy Work must be begun In figure of the Trinity Three of the Body and of the Spirit three And for the unity of the substance spiritual One more then of the substance corporal ANd thus thy Work is brought to the true Touch-stone and that is Trinity in Unity for in this pondus of your Mercury you have a potential Body which is one part of three of the Mercury which may by Art be made appear This potential Body is to be reckoned to your actual Body and that makes with it two and so in potentia you have two of the Body to one of the Spirit which is three to three and one to one And this potential Body is at first spiritual and volatile in manifesto for unity sake without which could be no unity Thus then a potential Body but an actual Spirit is joyned with an actual Body by which means the actual Body when it is actually dissolved and made no Body but a Spirit or Spiritual Body then this potential Spiritual Body which was in the Water before receives this potentialized Body and both unite and congeal together and is endowed with a double nature and virtue that is Spiritual and Corporal Heavenly and Earthly And thus is made an union of which the proportion of the Water in its first preparation and its due mixing with its Body was the moving cause really though hiddenly enforcing the Compound by the necessity of its end which it could not have done had it not been so proportioned By Raymunds Repertory this is true Proportion there who list to look The same my Doctor to me did shew THis is the true meaning of our proportions both according to the mystery of Internal and External pondus this is that which Authors have so much concealed both Raymund Arnold Albert and all who ever have wrote of it I have broke the Ice first in plain discovering the mystery Yet for all this you stand in need either of a Master or of more then ordinary pains accompanied with the blessing of God eâ—se never look to find out this mystery which though by me revealed more plainly then any yet it will and must remain secret even till the fulness of time But three of the Spirit Bacon took To one of the Body For which I awoke Many a night ere I it wist And both be true take which you list THere is another External proportion which is three of the Spirit to one of the Body according to the
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
For is it imaginable that they who are fools in Nature should be wise in our Books which are testimonies unto Nature In Eggs in Vitriol or in Blood What Riches ween they there to find If they Philosophy understood They would not be in working so blind Gold and Silver to seek out of its kind For like as Fire of burning principle is So the principle of gilding is Gold I wis If thou therefore intend for to make Gold or Silver by craft of our Philosophy Thereto neither Eggs nor Blood thou take But Gold aud Silver which naturally Calcined wisely and not manually A new Generation will forth bring Increasing its kind as doth every other thing SOme I know will serve my Book as they have served others out of it they will read their own fantastick processes which I never dreamt of nor yet are they in Nature and whatever I write most plainly they will Allegorize and say it is true for matter of Operation he wrought well but withall very enviously and mysteriously he calls the matter Gold and Mercury but that is but allusively but he meant Egg-shels calcined or Vitriol or Mans Blood or Dew or Rain-water or Salt-peter or Nitre or Tartar or this or that thing according to their sordid fancy and so they will proceed nothing unsettled in their fancies by what I have candidly written Gross Sots thus to think that I in what I without any equivocation call Gold and Mercury they should make to allude to such trifles it is the sign of an Owl to be blinder by how much the Sun shines clearer let me therefore to satisfie the Ingenious profess and protest that without any Allusion or Figure in speaking our Matter is Gold even the purest that is sold or can be bought this is our Masculine Sperm And our other principle is Mercury like to that which is commonly sold in form in flux and colour only it is brighter and some what more ponderous and without any Metaphor we call it Argent vive In the making of this Mercury is all our secret and in the Regimen of the Fire according to its capacity consists the whole Mastery O fools and blind think you to gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles wherefore do you thus waste your Goods proceeding in your Work as an Ass to his Crib never considering the nature of the thing you go about If Gold and Silver be your intention to produce in what would you find them in Eggs or Blood in Salts or such things what a madness is this to what end think you these operations will tend what conformity is there between what you seek and that which you take in hand do you not consider the difference of imposition between those Subjects and Metals how do you think that they should give weight to imperfect Bodies when as they themselves are far more light themselves how can you expect from them a specifick perfect Metalline Tincture which have not any thing Metalline in them You see not your own madness It is no light matter to cause a Body which perhaps is 10 or 12 parts at the least in 16 defective of the dimensions of Gold to penetrate its own dimensions so many times to answer your fond desires This which you attempt is to force Nature and to create Sperms both which are vain to undertake and truly impossible Leave then this Sophistry and imbrace true Light To create Sperms is Gods alone property and every thing hath its own Sperm as it hath its own Form there is nothing that hath a seminal virtue applicable to two things every thing hath its own Seed and according to its own Form Gold therefore and Silver being thine intention let the same be thy subject to work upon Gold is thy first Basis for thy white must first come out of thy red and when thy white Stone is perfect then mayst thou use Luna vulgar Now Gold must have its hidden Seed extracted and that is done by Mercury in Calcination for that operation is the Mineral Copulation in which the Seeds are sent forth and mingled together then shall the old Body die and a new Body shall rise again endowed with a multiplicative virtue according to the nature of all things for it savours rankly of absurdity and ignorance to allow all things almost a multiplicative power and to deny it to Gold the most perfect of all sublunary things And if it true were that profit might be In things which are not Metalline I But some will say How will you answer the Philosophers who affirm that their Stone is in all things though in some things nearer and in some things at greater distance yet in all things according to the rule of propinquius remotius To such I answer I grant and know that all things originally owe all their principle material unto Water and their formal unto Light and according to the congress of these two principles through the command of the Architect this Light doth illuminate the material Water in a singular way according to the Ideal species which were before in the Archetype So then the Matter resides in Water the Informing in Light and the determination of the Form which is as I may say the Form's formality is in the will of the Creator first impressed or sealed in the word fiat and ratified in his command producat unumquodque juxta speciem suam Now to apply this to our present purpose in Water and Light all things agree in the determination of Illumination they differ This determinative sentence of the Almighty sealed a great variety in the products of the Matter and Form which are in themselves general and being thus sealed not any thing can pass from its kind to mix with another kind but it will cause a product partaking of either Parent nor can mixture be made but in the same genus or species as an Apple may be graffed on a Crab-tree a Man may though abominably mix with a Beast licentia naturali but out of genus or species nothing can mix There are also many particular exceptions of things in one genus for many Trees I know which the Art of man cannot ingraff one in another so as to grow will yet grow well ingraffed elsewhere so a Dog and a Mouse cannot mix being one so disproportionable to another But this by the by To return to our intention we say that as all things are by the will and power of God specificated so with the destruction of that species the Form as to that individual perishing for no intire species can perish things may both by Nature and Art return to their first stable principle material which is Water of which Nature if it found it in a convenient place might impregnating it with a Metalline Seed produce a Metalline Sperm or viscosity which then might be a Metal by decoction and yield unto our work a profitable subject As in Blood Eggs Hair Vrine or Wine Or
Elements thou must therefore work by a continual boiling in which thy Compound will appear like unto the stormy Sea in a Tempest raging and swelling waves and bubbles rising one in the neck of another incessantly The Vapour of this Bath being imprisoned condenseth and returns every moment until there be an union made of all the Elements in a terra Adamica or Limus Then will the Body Soul and Spirit remain below in the bottom of the Vessel which is as a Tomb in which they dye and rot and are putrified For the Scripture recordeth when the Earth shall be Troubled and into the deep Sea shall be cast Mountains and Bodies likewise at the last THen will our Earth be moved and the powers of our Heaven will be shaken and the windows thereof opened and an universal Deluge will come upon the face of the whole Earth which will destroy all things and cover the highest Mountains so that all Flesh shall dye these Waters will be a long time upon the face of the ground Our Bodies be likned conveniently To Mountains which after high Planets we name Into the deeps therefore of Mercury Turn them and keep thee out of blame For then shalt thou see a noble game How all will become Powder as soft as Silk So doth our Runnit kindly curd up our Milk THus have many of the envious allegorized of the Scripture and veiled their Work under several passages and overtures which are mentioned therein to which they have some resemblance they have called their Metals Sol and Luna Mountains either for the situation sake they being generally found in Mountains or by opposition sake for as Mountains are highest above ground so they lye deepest under ground or for that as the Mountains are nearer the Sun so those do approximate nearer to coelestial Influences than any other Bodies whatsoever so also they have stiled them by the names of Planets by reason of some similitude But it makes not so much for the name the thing is take the Body which is Gold and throw it into Mercury such a Mercury which is bottomless that is whose centre it can never find but by discovering its own govern them wisely with Fire as thy Matter requireth then shall thy Gold visibly liquefie in the Fire that is appear thin as if it were Mercury and it will swell bubble and boil so long till the moisture be terminated by the Body into an impalpable Powder as naturally as Runnit doth curdle Milk into Cheese This total reduction into Atoms is the perfection of Putrefaction in blackness most black and it begins before the 50 th day and endeth before or about the 90 th day in variable colours Then have thy Bodies their first form lost And others been indued immediately Then hast thou well bestowed thy cost When others uncunning must go by Not knowing the secrets of our Philosophy THen thou hast a Body not such a one as thou puttest in but Hermaphroditical which yet hath but one form Nor is it the same form it had though an accidental imperfect one in the same kind which imperfect form is not to be despised for these Ashes are the Tomb of our King Honour then the Sepulchre of him and of his Queen if ever thou expect to see them returning from the East in power and great glory Never grutch it then that thou hast destroyed thy Gold for he that thus destroys it loseth it not but soweth good Seed in good Earth from whence he shall receive it with an hundred-fold increase when as he that saveth his Gold in this Work loseth his labour and is deceived for lack of true understanding when as he undertakes this Work without the true knowledge of its causes Yet one point more I must tell thee How that each Body hath dimensions three Altitude Latitude and also Profundity By which all Gates turn we must our Wheel HAving then this Mystery which is the Stumbling-block at which thousands stumble who cannot for all their talk destroy their Bodies which is not to be done but by the Alkahest which is an unprofitable way for our Work and by our Mercury viz. in 40 days or thereabouts Then know which must be your next progress for Calcination is but a term put on our Work by Authors and it reacheth to the end of Putrefaction our first Calcination I told you before that all our Work was compleat in three Circulations and every Circulation had three periods so now I tell you that these three periods are Altitude Latitude and Profundity Altitude and Profundity being united make Latitude and so our Wheel is turned round the Profundity is the Water below the Altitude is Vapour or Waters above and the union of these two is in a Calx which is Latitude which is done by Liquefaction Sublimation and Calcination Liquefaction dissolves and confounds Sublimation volatizeth separates and washeth and Calcination unites and fixeth Knowing that thine entrance in the West shall be Thy passage forth to the North if thou do well And there thy Lights will lose their lights each deal For there must thou abide for 90 nights In darkness of Purgatory without lights THou must begin in the West and in the Autumn which is Barren for then Crops are gathered take then thou Gold which is the Harvest of Natures works and it is barren of it self to make it fruitful thou must bring on the Winter showrs which is the North Latitude and by these the Earth will be made mellow and the Seeds will rot which Seeds are Sol terrestrial in whose belly is a hidden Luna These Lights will in this Operation be darkned and by little and little a horrible Night will over-shadow the Earth and Heaven a blackness like unto Pitch this blackness and Eclipsation will continue until the end of thy first three months perhaps 100 days perhaps 120 yea sometimes 130 days as it may fall out think not this time long for it must be that thy Matters must be purified before they can or shall be glorified Then take thy course up to the East anon By colours rising variable in manifold wise To the East therefore thine ascending devise For there the Sun with day-light doth uprise In Summer and there disport thee with delight THen shalt thou see thy Exhalations to return again and by the continuance of them on thy Body light shall begin to appear which is our Spring and East season in which as the rising Sun scatters the darkness with multitude of previous colours especially in a misty morning so is it with our Work such admirable colours will appear as never were seen by the eye of man in so little a room before Then rejoyce for now our King hath triumphed over the miseries of death and behold him returning in the East with the Clouds in power and great glory Now the Night is overgone and the Morning breaks the Winter is past and the Spring comes on pleasantly with sweet showrs of April
enter another Yea and beyond this it may be exalted beyond the nature of man yea and of any tangible Body to become a most radiant perpetual Light which I have seen though not my self actually made All this is done by the Divine virtue of our Water which is to be prepared as is said by Cohobation and Distillation for our Water is a living Water and not corrosive as many do mis-interpret our Books These then are the circumstantial qualities of our Water it is pure clean and very bright it is quick and very fluent without Humectation it is the only profitable subject that we can choose for this Art and whatever can be taken in hand in the World besides this is but fallacious It is a marvellous thing in kind And without it can nothing be done Therefore did Hermes call it his Wind For it is up-flying from Sun and Moon And maketh our Stone to fly with it soon Reviving the dead and giving life To Sun and Moon Husband and Wife IT is of a wonderful Composition yea so wonderful that if thou shouldst know it by relation only thou couldst not believe it Study therefore only to know it for it is the very hinge on which turns all perfection it is that which the Wise men never revealed but only in Figures and Metaphors Some have called it their sharp Vinegar because of its dissolvent quality others have called it a Bird a Goose a Phesant and many such names they have given it But because it ariseth in the form of a Wind or Vapour the Philosophers have called it their Vapour their Smoak and their Wind and for this cause command that the Porter keep diligent watch that it fly not away or exhale for it would spoil the Work This Water then flyeth the more Spiritual part of it and the Corporal part remaineth below in the form of an Humidity which doth bubble and boil continually and the smoak in the Head condenseth and returneth in drops upon the Body and by this means the Body of Sol which is most fixed to the astonishment of Nature is made volatile and sends out in the Exhalation of the Water its subtle fiery Soul Thus the dead Body hath infused into it a Spirit of life and begins to be endowed with a living Soul which moves aloft with the Spirit and returns with the same till the Body be wholly renewed And by this means the Body of the Sun retaining the more Corporeal part of the Water at the bottom they boil together and enter one another and so both by decoction become more and more Corporal and make together one Hermaphroditical Body of which the more fixed parts of the Sun and the grosser parts of the Water are the Component principals So that being thus mixed the more Corporal parts below and the more Spiritual parts in Sublimation the Bodily part is Husband and Wife to it self for all Conception is made at the bottom of the Vessel Which if they were not by craft made quick And their fatness with Water drawn out And so the thin dissevered from the thick Thou shouldest never bring this Work about If thou wilt therefore speed without doubt Raise up the Birds out of their Nest And after bring them again to rest THese Bodies do send forth a thin subtle fume which may be compared to their breath and the returning of it and fuming continually may be likened to the breathing in and out of Air for saith Artephius all things live by Air and so our Stone it is inspired by the Air which Air is the fume which ascends continually which partakes of both Natures as well as the Body below doth Also this makes that below to boil and swell continually which it would not do did not the Earth retain the moisture and the Sublimation carries with it the subtilest part or Soul of the Body which easily appears by its changing of colours for whatever coloureth is of Sulphur which is unctuous and therefore the Sublimation appears pinguous the medium of this Extraction is Water because our Water and the Sulphur are Homogeneal Wherefore in this Circulation there are two things to be considered the bottom and the top the bottom is not only the Body of Sol for so it would not stand liquid and flow and boil and bubble as it doth therefore it is certain that the Body retains part of the Water which is more thick which thickness digestion and mixture hath caused which grosser part of the Water is joyned with the Body but not perfectly united The uppermost part is not only from the Water nor yet the most whole of the Water but a certain subtle portion of your first Vinegar which hath in it the most pure part of your Gold which is sublimed with it which both together make a medium of much Firiness So then by reason of the mixture both the uppermost and the subsident part are reduced to a mean which hold one of another therefore our Body at this time and in this Operation is called the Body both of the Sun and Moon and the Vapour contains both the Soul of the Sun and the Spirit of the Mercury Take this for your prey for I have reveal'd what Philosophers upon penalty of an Anathema would never disclose If you have well attended to what I have said I have said enough and if this do not suffice you I know not what will Remember well what I have said if you ever expect success To sum up all therefore in one word for I have been so long that I fear I have been too prolix Remember what you go about and what you work on You take in hand an Earthly Body which you would bring to a Heavenly Tincture This you would effect by Mercury which is the only way or medium in the World First then sublime till by Mercury thou hast brought thy Body to the height of volatility and thou shalt find that in this dissolved Body there will be such a ferment which will recongeal the Spirit Water with Water accord will and ascend And Spirit with Spirit for they be both of one kind Which when they be exalted make to descend So shalt thou unloose that which Nature erst did bind Mercury essential turning into Wind Without which natural and subtle Separation May never be compleat profitable Generation FOr the Body though in its manifesto it be Sulphur congealed and dry yet in its occulto it is Mercury liquid and moist Now the Water which thou mixest with it hath this vertue to open its pores and then the Water of the Body will as naturally agree and ascend with thy Water of Life which thou didst put to it as one Water will joyn with another Now as Sol hath a hidden Spirit so hath our Mercury which is in it invisible for to sight it appears as other Mercury only a little brighter but in effect they differ wonderfully which Spirit will as naturally unite with the Soul
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
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
not so thin and yet so soft that it is easily plyable yet so that it may be rouled up in Balls and no quick Mercury run down or sink to the bottom He that can miss in this direction would hardly find the shining Sun at Noon-day Loosing and knitting be principles two Of this hard Science Poles most principal Howbeit that other principles be many moe c. WE have done this Chapter and to conclude assure thee that all our twelve Gates are nothing else but locking and unlocking shutting and opening dissolving and congealing volatizing and fixing making the dry soft and afterwards the soft dry loosing and binding Learn but this and thou shalt be sure of the Keys of this Terrestrial Paradise Yet because I would be more clearly understood I shall pass through the other Gates of the Philosophers that running through their multiplicity I may as I go reduce them all to unity UPon a day as I abroad was walking The pleasant Fields to view A voice I heard in silence softly talking Of Wonders passing new Whereat I starting stood like one amazed Not knowing what to guess But when I round about a while had gazed This terrour it grew less The voice I heard came from a Grove which there At my right hand did grow Which I considering silently drew near The cause of it to know Where I did see a Lady finely dressed Sit sighing by a Spring She uttered words as if with grief oppressed And oft her hands would wring Ah me quoth she how is my joy departed Oh dismal cruel death Could any think the Fiend so flinty hearted So to bereave him breath I then drew near and thought to have asswaged With pleasant words her grief The more I spake the more she was enraged Nay she disdain'd relief Her face was Lilly white with Purple spots Vpon her cheeks and chin Her Rosie lips her feature free from blots T' amaze me did begin Beauty most rare quoth I what dost thou weeping What Wight most vile shall dare To wrong thee whom the Gods have in their keeping Whose face is mortals snare Good Sir quoth she forbear your words of sorrow I live yet living dye I wish my life might end before the morrow Ah death I fear 's not nigh I had a Husband dear of comely feature A King of great renown So lovely and so loving that in Nature There 's none may put him down His Constitution was so strong he scorned To fly from any Foe His Person was with grace so well adorned That none but him did know Great Phoebus he was nam'd whose princely merit 'T is death for to recite So Rich he was the wealth he did inherit Great honour did invite We walking here the pleasant Woods among Found this unhappy Spring Of which to drink for thirst my Lord did long Which draught his end did bring For stooping down the Water with its stream His head did make so light He could not rise but dropt into the stream To everlasting Night He strove to swim but to the bottom sank O dismal sight to see Then swelling with the Water which he drank Himself he could not free But burst and then the Spring began to boil And bubbling colour chang'd 'T is wonder for to see alas the spoil King dead and Spring estrang'd So from its former state that what then shone Like unto glittering Skie Now like a stinking Puddle reaks that none Can it endure yea I Who in it lost a Husband dear do loath The vapours that ascend I hope one Spring will be the end of both 'T would be a happy end So long she spake until the Water seem'd Like Ink so black it grew And eke the savour erst so bad esteem'd Did far surpass the hew The Air with Clouds most dark was fill'd that never Such Fogs and Mists were seen The which a Soul from the dead Corps did sever Whose colour first was green Then yellow mixt with blue the fumes ascended Which bore the Soul on high Which when the Lady saw her tears were ended She fainted by and by Into the same Stream she did swouning drop And never more appear'd She lov'd her Husband so she would not stop Like one of death afear'd And straightway she of vital breath depriv'd Was of a Lady fair A Carcass made thus both in love who liv'd Alike in death did share Their Souls disjoyned from their Bodies hov'ring Vpon the Fountain plaid Expecting if their Carcasses recovering Might have their lives repaid The Sun in Solstice stood whose heat did dry The Waters more and more And eke beneath a Central heat did fry And sent up vapours store Which still return'd so long till they were chang'd The greater part to dust The wandring Souls which long had been estrang'd Were now allur'd with lust Of their own Bodies in whose Atoms lay A strange Magnetick force They also though long banish'd day by day Awaited the dead Coarse For Souls united were Bodies combin'd And both to each ally'd So nearly that no sooner they can find A way but they are ty'd With knot inviolable that no power How strong it may appear Can part them any more even from the hour They thus united were Thus two one Body have of double Sex Which doth no sooner live But is impregnated this doth perplex Their foes who fain would drive This tender off-spring to despair but God Him safely ever keeps From all Invasion nor permits the rod Of them to make him weep And though his Garments and his Skin be foul With blackness and with stink He shall be purged for both Spirit and Soul Are clean whate're men think A River springs amidst a Garden fair With Flowers many deckâ— Whose drops are Crystal like these into Air By Central heat are checkt This Air condenses like Pearl Orient Which on this Body falls Whose lustre on its blackness being spent To brightness it recalls And both together make a Crystal Spring Whose Streams most strangely shine These after are condens'd and with them bring Treasures of Silver fine These Treasures if to rest untoucht a while Vpon the Fire are left The stealing Azure will the white beguile And both will be bereft Of Being by the Vert which long will dure The Citrine will succeed Which will abide full long but then be sure To see the sparkling red Then is the King who formerly was drown'd Become the whole Earths wonder His Wife and he are one and both abound With wealth nor they asunder Will ever more depart now all their Foes Must their dominion know Who will not stoop shall surely feel their blows For all are him below His Brethren all who formerly were held As Slaves in prison fast Are now set free their Enemies which swell'd With pride full low were cast Thus by his death the King hath now obtain'd That Glory which before He never had his former state 's disdain'd His Wife now weeps no more She 's one with him his
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
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
Art we have written that which never heretofore was by any revealed NOw for a close of this most secret Gate Whereat few enter none but they who are By Gods grace favour'd it s not luck ne sate That in disclosing this can claim a share It is a portion which is very rare Bestow'd on those whom the most High shall chuse To such the Truth I freely shall declare Nor ought through Envy to them shall refuse Nor with unwonted Riddles shall their hopes abuse Of uncouth subjects now shall be my Song My mind intends high Wonders to reveal Which have lain hidden heretofore full long Each Artist striving them how to conceal Lest wretched Caitiffs should these Treasures steal Nor Villains should their Villanies maintain By this rare Art which danger they to heal In horrid Metaphors veil'd an Art most plain Lest each Fool knowing it should it when known disdain Remember Man how he produced was How formed from a lump of abject Clay From whence Created he each thing doth pass Which next to Angels ever saw the day For God in him infus'd so bright a Ray Of his own Image which the Body joyn'd To it ennobled so that both pourtray Their Maker as though Heaven with Earth combin'd A little System of the Vniverse to find But yet though he of Soul and Body both Was made and of the two the nobler part The Soul by far which for the most part doth The subject nominate yet that same Art That made so rare a piece doth from the part Less noble name the whole Adam or Dust Wherein a Mystery was couch'd whose heart Of life the Centre to Earth's bowels must Return the Earth it self for Man's sake being curs'd Right so our Stone containeth Natures two One hidden subtle Soul Heavens Progeny The other gross compact terrene also Earth's product must to Earth by destiny Which when resolv'd is made a feculency To sight but the Coelestial part is still Though over-clouded most pure inwardly And shall at last most Pearlie drops distill Which shall the barren Earth with fruit in plenty fill Thus all our Secrets from the Earth do flow 'T is Earth which for our Base at first we take Our Water also unto Earth must go And both together must a Limus make Which we with respite by our Art must bake Till all become a Spirit glorify'd Whose firmness wasting time shall never shake By perfect union th' are so surely ty'd Each Element the other three within it self doth hide Take then that thing which Gold we please to call But 't is not Gold yet Gold it is in truth Metalline 't is yet from a Mineral It flows which Art by Nature holp renew'th And to a Fool an ugly face it sheweth Yet to a Son of Art it lovely seems 'T is Stellar white and tender in his youth And vile appears in many mens esteems Yea the most part of men it for a trifle deems From it is made a subject of great price Shew it the Goldsmith and he 'l swear 't is Gold But look you sell it not if you be wise The Basis 't is of Secrets manifold This for their secret main the Sages hold The like is in Gold digged from the Mine But to procure it is scarce to be told That you may understand though every line Were plainly wrote yet might your practice oft decline For 't is a Labour hardly to be borne So many tricks and turnings in it be And he that tryeth it is surely forlorne Vnless a crafty Master credit me For I have tryed both yet could not see How any in this way can be secure I therefore who have vowed secrecy Have writ this way which we can scarce endure For knowledge-sake to try its ease will none allure Our Kingly road I also hinted have Our way in which a Fool can hardly erre Our secret way which much sad toyl will save Which is so easie that I may averr If thou shouldst see it thou wouldst it preferr To any Earthly pleasure yet beware That you mistake not for I do averr A mingled Doctrine these lines do declare For both ways in this Book of mine do claim a share Learn to distinguish every sentence well And know to what Work it doth appertain This is great skill which few as I can tell By all their reading yet could ere attain And yet of Theory this is the main Also to know accordingly to give Due heat which in one way thou must be fain T' increase ten-fold thou mayst me well believe For what doth one decoct t'other away will drive Also their Operations different Appear the one thou must sublime and boyl O tedious way in which much time is spent And many errours which the Work will spoyl The other silently doth make no toyl Like the still voice which to Eliah came About which Work thou needest not to broyl Nor wantst thou â—iery Vulcan's parching flame A far more gentle heat begins and ends this Game But if thou canst each Work perform apart And knowst them afterward to reconcile Then art thou Master of a Princely Art The very success will thy hopes beguile Thou hast all Natures Works rankt on a File And all her Treasures at command dost keep On thee the Fates shall never dare but smile No Mystery is now for thee too deep Th' art Natures Darling whether thou dost wake or sleep Pardon my plainness if the Art thou knowst 'T was the fruit of my untame desire To profit many and without a boast No man above my â—andour shall aspire My zeal was kindled with Minerva's Fire And thou who to this Art wilt now apply My â—ook in Natures way shall lead thee higher Then ever thou alone mayst hope to fly If only thou shalt favour'd be by Destiny Peruse these lines and being read review And read again and on them meditate Each reading shall fresh Mysteries and new Discover which are scatter'd in each Gate For they so linked are that all relate To each and we our words have woven so That thou mayst soon erre by misleading â—ate Vnless for to distinguish thou do know Remember that 'mongst Briars thick sweet Roses grow AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Sixth Gate Which is CONGELATION The Sixth Gate Opened Which is CONGELATION Congelation c. It is of soft things in duration of colour white c. How to congeal he needeth not much to care for Elements But Congelations be made in divers wise of Spirits c. Of Salts dissolved c. and then congeal'd And some dissolveth congealing manually c. But such congealing is not c. HAving largely run through the first five Gates in which is all the difficulty pre-supposing now that you have passed the shades of the Night and are now come to the approaching of the Day whose dawning is to be seen soon after the darkness of the Night and is discovered by variety of gay Clouds which run before the Sun in its up-rising The first remarkable
wash it with Salt and again do heat it and grind it this I repeat to the full cleansing it from all manner of Faeces 9. A threefold tryal of the goodness of the Prepared Mercury TAke thy Mercury prepared with its Arsnick of seven eight nine or ten Eagles put it into a Phial and thou shalt lute it with the Lutum sapientiae place it in a Furnace of Sand and let it stand in an heat of Sublimation so that it may ascend and descend in the Glass until it be coagulated a little thicker than Butter continue it unto a perfect Coagulation until it be as white as Silver 10. Another tryal IF by shaking it in a Glass with the Salt of Urine it be turned into an impalpable white Powder of its own accord so that it doth not appear as Mercury and of its own accord in an hot and dry place it coagulates again into a thin Mercury it is enough but yet better if being agitated in Fountain-water it runs into small heads or particles for if the grain be in the Body it will not be thus converted and separated into small minute parts 11. The third tryal DIstill it in a Glass Alembick from a Glass Cucurbit if it passes over and leaves nothing behind it it is a good Mineral Water 12. The extraction of the Sulphur from the living Mercury by Separation TAke thy mixed corporal and spiritual Compound the Body of which is coagulated of the volatile by digestion and separate the Mercury from its Sulphur by a Glass Still and thou shalt have a white Luna fixed and resisting Aqua fortis and more ponderous than common Silver 13. The Magical Sol out of this Luna OUt of this white Sulphur by Fire thou shalt have a yellow Sulphur by a manual Operation which Sol is the red Lead of the Philosophers 14. Out of this Sulphur Aurum potabile THou mayst turn this yellow Sulphur into an Oyl as red as Blood by circulating it with the Volatile-Mercurial-Philosophical Menstruum so thou shalt have an admirable Panacea or Universal Medicine 15. The gross conjunction of the Menstruum with its Sulphur for the formation of the Off-spring of the Fire TAke of thy purged best prepared and choicest Mercury of seven eight nine or at most ten Eagles mix it with the prepared Laton or its red Sulphur that is to say two parts of the Water or at the most three with one of the pure Sulphur ground and purged N. B. but it is better that thou takest two parts to one 16. The working of the mixture by a manual Operation THis thy mixture thou shalt grind very well upon a Marble then thou shalt wash it with Vinegar and Sal Armoniac until it hath put off all its black Faeces then thou shalt wash off all its saltness and acrimony with clear Fountain-water then shalt thou dry it upon clean white Paper by turning of it from place to place with the point of a Knife even unto an exquisite dryness 17. The putting in of the Foetus into the Philosophical Egg. NOw thy mixture being dryed put it into an Oval Glass of the best and most transparent Glass of the bigness of an Hens Egg in such a Glass let not thy Matter exceed two ounces seal it Hermetically 18. The Government of the Fire THen you must have a Furnace built in which you may keep an immortal Fire in it you shall make an heat of Sand of the first degree in which the dew of our Compound may be elevated and circulated continually day and night without any intermission c. And in such a Fire the Body will die and the Spirit will be renewed and at length the Soul will be glorified and united with a new immortal and incorruptible Body Thus is made a new Heaven FINIS A Breviary of ALCHEMY OR A COMMENTARY UPON Sir GEORGE RIPLEY'S RECAPITULATION BEING A Paraphrastical Epitome of his Twelve GATES Written by Aeyrenaeus Philalethes ANGLUS COSMOPOLITA LONDON Printed for William Cooper at the Pellican in Little Britain MDCLXXVIII Sir George Ripley's RECAPITULATION I. FOr to bring this Treatise to a final end And briefly here to conclude these secrets all Diligently look thou and to thy Figure attend Which doth in it contain these secrets great and small And if thou it conceive both Theorical and Practical By Figures and Colours and by Scripture plain Which wittily conceived thou mayest not work in vain II. Consider first the Latitude of this precious Stone Beginning in the first side noted in the West Where the red Man and white Woman be made one Spoused with the Spirit of life to live in love and rest Earth and water equally proportion'd that is best And one of the Earth is good and of the Spirit Three Which Twelve to Four also of the Earth may be III. Three of the Wife and one of the Man thou must take And the less of the Spirit there is in this Disponsation The rather thy Calcination for certain shalt thou make Then forth into the North proceed by obscuration Of the red man and his white Wife called Eclypsation Loosing them and altering them betwixt Winter and Vere Into Water turning Earth dark and nothing clear IV. From thence by Colours many one into the East ascend Then shall the Moon be full appearing by day-light Then is she passed Purgatory and her course at an end There is the upâ—rising of the Sun appearing white and bright There is Summer after Vere and Day after Night Then Earth and Water which were black be turned into Air And Clouds of darkness â—ver-blown and all appeareth fâ—â—r V. And as in the West was the beginning of thy practice And the North the perfect mean of profound alteration So in the East after them is the beginning of speculation But of this course up in the South the Sun maketh consummation There be the Elements turned into Fire by Circulation Then to win to thy desire thou needst not be in doubt For the Wheel of our Philosophy thou hast turn'd about VI. But yet about again 2 times turn thy wheel In which be comprehended all the secrets of our Philosophy In Chapters Twelve made plain to thee if thou conceive them well And all the secrets by and by of our lower Astronomy How thou shalt Calcine Bodies perfect dissolve divide and putrifie With perfect knowledg of all the Poles which in our Heaven been Shining with Colours inexplicable never were gayer seen VII And this one secret conclusion know withouten fail Our Red Man teyneth not nor his Wife until they teyned be Therefore if thou list thy self by this craft to avail The Altitude of the Bodies hide and shew out their profundity In every of thy Materials destroying the first Quality And secondary Qualities more glorious in them repair anon And in one Glass with one Reg'ment Four Natures turn to One. VIII Pale and black with false Citrine unperfect White and Red The Peacock's Feathers in Colours gay the Rainbow
which shall over-go The spotted Panther the Lyon green the Crow's Bill blew as Lead These shall appear before the perfect White and many other moe Colours And after the perfect white gray and false Citrine also And after these then shall appear the bloody red invariable Then hast thou a Medicine of the third order of his own kind multiplicable IX Thou must divide thy white Elixir into parts Two Before thou Rubifie and into Glasses Two let them be done If thou wilt have the Elixirs for Sun and Moon so do With Mercury then them multiply unto great quantity soon And if thou hadst not at the beginning enough to fill a Spoon Yet thou mayst them so multiply both the White and the Red That if thou liv'st a Thousand Years they will stand thee in stead X. Have thou recourse unto thy Wheel therefore I counsel thee And study him well to know in each Chapter truly Meddle with no Fantastical Multiplyers but let them be Which will thee flatter and falsly say they are cunning in Philosophy Do as I bid thee then dissolve those foresaid Bases wittily And turn them into perfect Oyls with our true Water ardent By Circulation that must be done according to our intent XI These Oyls will six crude Mercury and convert Bodies all Into perfect Sol and Lune when thou shalt make Projection That Oyly Substance pure fixt Reymond Lully did call His Basilisk of which he never made so plain detection Pray for me to God that I may be one of his Election And that he will for one of his at Dooms-day me ken And grant me in his Bliss to Reign with him for ever Amen A Breviary of Alchemy OR A COMMENTARY UPON Sir GEORGE RIPLEY'S RECAPITULATION BEING A Paraphrastical Epitome of his XII Gates Stanza I. Position I. That the Art is most certainly true WHich wittily conceiv'd thou mayest not Work in vain Whence observe the Truth and Certainty of the Art so Father Hermes It is true saith he without falshood certain and most true That which is above is like that which is beneath and that which is beneath is like that which is above to bring about the Miracles of one thing So Trevisan Flammel Dionys Zachary and others affirm upon their own Experience And so this our Author in his Epistle to King Edward his Conclusion of the Admonition concerning erroneous Experiments and other places of these his Twelve Gates that I need not enlarge on this Subject Stanza II. Position II. Our Work is made of Three Principles WHere the Red Man and the White Woman are made one c. Thence it is evident that our Operations are made of Three Principles yet of one Essence the Red Man the White Wife and the Spirit of Life By the latter the two former are Espoused or made One. This is that which Trevisan calls his One Root and Two Mercurial Substances crude at their taking and extracted out of their Minera's This our Author else-where calls his Trinity and Vnity the Trinity respecting the Substances as they are severall the Vnity respecting their Essence which is intirely Homogenial Therefore it is added that they live in love and rest without repugnancy which could not be were they not Essentially and Radically the same For likeness of Nature is the Cause of Love and Oneness of Essence the true ground of Union among different Substances can only be expected Confusion if not Destruction Position III. Three Substances make only Two Natures Earth and Water EArth and Water equally proportion'd that is best Here it is evident that these Three Substances make up but Two Natures of Earth and Water The Man and Wife are both Bodies or Earths the one fixed and ripe the other Volatile and unripe and by Mixture make a brittle black Hermaphroditical Body or Earth called the Philosophers Lead as Ripley in his Preface expresseth it The White Woman or Famale is otherwise called the Moon by all Philosophers and by this Author in his Doctrine of Proportions One of the Sun and Two of the Moon till altogether like Pap be done Position IV. From equal Pondus of Earth and Water Three of Water to One of the Earth is good but equal is best THen make the Mercury Four to the Sun Two to the Moon c. as it should be in Figure of the Trinity And so we come to take notice of the Doctrine of Proportion between the Earth and Water equal that is best the same saith our Author in his Chapter of Calcination This is the surest and best proportion speaking of equal Pondus of Earth and Water and gives the Reason because Solution will be sooner made viz. The more thy Earth the less thy Water be The sooner and better Solution shalt thou see And here he affirms the same of Calcination which goes before Solution Yet Three of the Water to One of the Earth will do well lest the Tincture should not have room to be sufficiently dilated in the Water and the Body opened by it and this is the Pondus of Roger Bacon which requires a longer time before the quick be kil'd and by consequence the reviving of the dead must be longer in doing For Calcination is nothing else but a killing the moist with the dry till which be done there is no reviving of the dry by the moist but they have one and the same Operation and Period of time for one dies not but the other revives nor doth the Dragon die but with its Sister Position V. The White Wife in the first Conjunction is to be Three to One of the Red Man THree of the Wife and one of the Man thou take c. From the Pondus between the Earth and Water come we to view the Proportion between the Man and his Wife Here the Pondus is laid down Three to One and so there are Four parts of Earth to Four of Water or more until Twelve that is Three of Water to One of the Earth This also is clear from the Chapter of Conjunction where the Woman is allow'd 15 Veins to 5 of the Man as to the Act of their Foecundity which is interpreted of the first Conjunction by himself that the Man must have but 3 of Water and his Wife 9 which is 12 of Water to 4 of the Earth by which it is evident that the Woman is to exceed her Husband in a three-fold Proportion Or Two to One after Reymund Or Four to One according to Alanus but Three to One is best However in Reymund's Doctrine of Proportions cited by our Author in his Gate of Calcination One of the Sun is joyn'd with Two of the Moon which make Three of the Body and to these are added Four of Mercury which is One more of the Spiritual than of the Corporal part and this the Author compares to Trinity and Vnity both are good Yea and Alanus prescribes Four parts to One which may be done but Three to One is best and equal Pondus
of Spirit and Life for compleating of the Marriage between this Royal Pair the Sun the Husband and the Moon the Wife Of this speaks this Author in his Gate of Solution One in Gender they be but in Number not so The Father is the Sun and the Moon the Mother the Mover is Mercury This Compound according to its various Considerations hath many Relations and as many Denominations Sun and Moon Man and Wife Body Soul and Spirit Earth and Water Sister and Brother Mother and Son with many others but its Proper Name is Magnesia Quest What is the Red Man what his White Wife What the Spirit of Life It may be here questioned what this Red Man is what his White Wife and what the Spirit of Life for that is the only knot in understanding the Writings of Philosophers whose various Expressions and seeming Contradictions herein do obscure the Art wonderfully Yet however they seem to differ in their Writings they mean all one thing if well or rightly understood Answer 1 st What the Red Man is The Red Man betokens the perfect Body of the Sun or his Shadow the Moon For Lune the Body which is one of the Seven is a Male and a perfect Body and fixed only wants a little Digestion and therefore the Red is hid under its visible White as White is hid under the visible Red of Sol Therefore our Author in his Work of Albification saith that the Sun appeareth White and Bright And Trevisan saith our King who is cloathed in Garments of pure Gold after he is once in the Bath appears no more till after one hundred and thirty days and then he appears White and wonderfully bright and shining And an old Philosopher saith Honour our King at his return from the East in Glory and admirable bright whiteness Therefore saith Artefius Our Water is of kin to the perfect Bodies to the Sun and to the Moon but more to the Sun then to the Moon Note this well And in all his Books he joyns the Sun and Moon the perfect Bodies Gold and Silver for the work So doth Ripley and so all Philosophers by which it is evident that either of the perfect Metals or Luminaries with oâ—r Aqua Vitae will compleat the work as Arnold expressly saith in his Questions Answers to Boniface and Jodocus Greverus in his Treatise confirms the same in these words If so be saith he thou be so poor that thou canst not take Gold then take so much Silver yet Gold is the better as being nearer of kin to our Water and Mercury Answer 2. What is the White Wife Secondly The White Wife otherwise called the Moon is a Female it is a Coagulated Mercury but not fixt A spiritual Body fluxible in nature of a Body yet Volatile in nature of a Spirit It is called therefore Mercury of the Philosophers Our Green Lyon Our immature or unripe Gold It is Pontanus's Fire Artephius's middle substance clear like pure Silver which ought to receive the Tinctures of the Sun and Moon his sharp Vineger his Antimonial-Saturnine-Mercurial Argent Vive without which â—aton cannot be whitened of which an old Philosopher saith whiten the red Laton by a white tepid and suffocated Water of which testimony Trâ—visanus affirms that nothing could be said better or clearer This is that which is intimated in the Vision of Arislaus who found a People that were Married yet had no Children because they married two Males together Such are they who mix Sol and Lune both Corporal and fixt together whom the Spirit will never revive because there is not conjugal Love Joyn therefore Gabritius to his beloved Sister Beya which is a tender Damsel and straightway Gabritius will die that is will lose what he was and from that place where he appeared to have lost what he was he shall appear what he was not before Answ 3. What is the Spirit of Life Thirdly The Spirit of Life is Mercury The Mover saith this Author is Mercury with which the Stone is to be multiplyed when it is made And it must be true Mineral Mercury without any forreign mixture as Arnold resolves expressly in his Answer to Boniface And so Ripley saith some can multiply Mercury with Saturn and other substances which we defie Distil it therefore till it be clean c. It moreover must have all the proportions of Mercury its ponderosity otherwise it could not be Metalline its Humidity otherwise the Feminine Sperm would be deficient and its siccity not to wet the hand which it can no sooner lose by Corrosives or otherwise but it straight-way loseth its first Mineral Proportion and so is no longer an Ingredient of our true Tincture Position VI. As the West Latitude is the entrance so in the North is the first alteration PRoceed then forth to the North by obscuration c. Loosing them and altering them c. The Materials being found and mixt according to the Proportions taught before is called the West Latitude because in it the Sun sets and afterwards appears no more in his Red Robes till he first be cloathed with a White glittering Robe and be Crowned with a very bright Oriental Diadem Now the progress into the North is a discovery of the Profundity of the Stone and is compared to the Winter which is in the North chiefly long tedious cold and slabbery so will it be in this Work the Signs are Capricorn Pisces and Aquarius In this there is a retrogradation of Sol into its first matter in which alteration the old Form dies the Matter rots and putrifies and is after renewed in the East This Operation saith Flammel is not perfected in less then Five Months and the Colours of the Compound are dark obscure waterish and at length black like Pitch in which blackness the Body is rotted into Atoms which intire blackness and height of corruption lasts but 2 or 3 days and therefore saith Ripley in his Epistle the third day he shall arise the same saith Dastin in his Rosary where he allows four days for Putrefaction The same saith Efferarius the Monk in his intire Treatise published with Dastin However the whole time of blackness in coming continuing and going away is 150 days although the Sun begins to appear in 130 days if you work aright This I have added for the sake of many who expect black of the blackest in 40 or 50 dayes mistaking Flammel herein who saith the colour must be black of the blackest and like to the colour of the Dragons in 40 days which Dragons were blackish blewish and yellowish which colours shew that the Matter begins to rot into Atoms which rottenness is not perfected in less than 150 days so as to let the Sun appear with its Rays First in a small Circle of Heir of a whitish Citrine which increaseth and changeth hue day by day till whiteness be fully compleated Position VII The East denoting Whiteness is the beginning of the Stones Altitude THence by Colours
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