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
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
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
the more exactly thou mixest them the better and sooner will they work one upon another in heat Then set thy Glass in a Furnace made for thy Work and give a convenient Fire in which it may boyl night and day perpetually without a minutes ceasing order the Fire so that it may in 12 or 24 hours begin to boyl and from that hour not to cease boyling subliming ascending and descending until such time as the moisture be dried up and all remain below at least greatest part in form of a discontinuous Calx But manners there be of our Conjunction three The first is called by Philosophers diptative The which between Agent and Patient must be Male and Female Mercury and Sulphur vive Matter and Form thin and thick to thrive This Lesson will help thee without doubt And our Conjunction truly bring about NOw to help thee throughly in this mystery of Philosophical Conjunction I shall particularize all our Conjunctions We have particularly three Conjunctions all which must be known by him who intends to compleat this Mastery The first is gross which I touched before it is the Amalgamation of Sol with our Mercury which because the mixture is made of two things it is called Conjunction diptative and the Compound is now called Rebis that is two things according to the verse Res Rebis est Vina confecta In this mixture there are two Natures the one more active which is the Mercury the other more passive which is Gold where note that the activity of the Mercury above the Gold is because the moving virtue of Sol is sealed that is his Sulphur is imprisoned Otherwise when Dissolution is made Sol then is most active and Mercury more passive Mercury then is as it were the Feminine Sperm which being more crude and tender it is sooner wrought upon by the Fire which Sol the Masculine Sperm feels not till it be penetrated by the Mercury and then it is forced to send forth its Seed for the formal principle resides mostly in the Gold and the material chiefly in the Water in the one being thick of constitution the formal part is sealed in the other that little which is in respect of the Body is more at liberty and so by consequence sooner active These two then must be mixed ad justam exigentiam naturae as is elsewhere hinted and prosecuted largely To this if thou hast attended thou shalt know the extent and full Latitude of this Conjunction this is a manual work and the last manual work next to the putting and sealing of it in the Egg that thou hast before thou hast attained the first degree of the Mastery The second manner is called Triptative Which is a Conjunction of things three Of Body Soul and Spirit that they not strive Which Trinity thou must bring to Vnity THe next Conjunction that follows this in order is when thou hast so administred and regulated thy Fire that thy Spirits shall so ascend and circulate until they have extracted out of the fixed Body its most digested virtue or subtle Soul which is Sulphureous or of great Firiness Then shall the Spirit and Soul descend and shall unite it self with the Body then shall the Air be converted into Dust according to the process of noble Sandivogius where they shall lye contumulate for six weeks without breath and after when the Spirit of life shall enter into them the Spirit and Soul shall by their mighty force carry aloft the Body with them so that it shall go out and return with them for now these three are made one For as the Soul to the Spirit the bond must be Right so the Body the Soul to him must knit Out of thy mind let not this Lesson flit SO then by the mediation of the Soul the Spirit is made one and incorporate with the Body for the Soul being by the Spirit drawn from the Body doth naturally desire to be united with it again and so long as it is from it is from home as it were in a Pilgrimage The Body also naturally doth desire its Soul and will as forcibly attract it as a Loadstone doth attract Iron for know that the Soul doth not ascend but it carries with it a fermental Odour of the Body by which it doth so effectually affect the Spirit that it begins to think of taking a new impression and becomes daily by little and little more and more able to suffer Fire and by consequence draws to the nature of a Body observe this The third manner and also the last of all Four Elements together which joyns to abide Tetraptative certainly Philosophers do it call And specially Guido de Montanor whosâ— fame goeth wide And therefore in most laudable manner this tide BUt yet this Conjunction doth not retain the volatility of the Compound though it is so united that the parts ascend and descend together the reason is that though by the Soul the Spirit and Body be united yet the Spirit sometimes doth carry the Body with it aloft and the Body at times precipitates the Spirit the Soul holding fast together till at length not only these parts but the Elemental qualities of them are so strongly permixt that the one doth not more in acting then the other doth in resisting by which means they are not only united to follow one another but fixt to abide Fire together This is the last and noblest Conjunction in which all the mysteries of this Microcosm have their Consummation This is by the Wise called their Tetraptive Conjunction wherein the Quadrangle is reduced to a Circle in the which there is neither beginning nor end He who hath arrived here may sit down at Banquet with the Sun and Moon This is the so highly commended Stone of the Wise which is without all fear of corruption for here are by Nature all Elements Anatically mixed and united so that it cannot suffer from any for it agrees with all In our Conjunction four Elements must aggregate In due proportion which first asunder were separate THese our Elements are not such vain trifles which are idly imagined by Sophisters by the primary qualities to speak after the common phrase though I do not think that any thing attains perfection upon an account of qualities but so it pleased the Ancients to express themselves only this is most certain that what was before inconstant in the Fire now is impatible therein and what at first in the beginning of the Work discovered two distinct Natures is now one intirely and inseparably Therefore like as the Woman hath veins fifteen And the Man but five to the act of their fecundity Required in our Conjunction first I mean So must the Man his Son have of his Water three And nine his Wife which three to him must be Then like with like shall joy have for to dwell More of Conjunction me needeth not to tell OUr Stone is as it is called Microcosmos which name unless to our Stone hath been only
former Kingdom he Vnto his Brethren gives The worst of them doth now those Fortunes see That each in plenty lives And what their Brother was before his death That they are now become For he their sickness cures with his breath And makes them live at home No more in bondage bond 's no place can find All liberty enjoy There 's nothing here can hurt for all one mind Have all that would destroy Is banish'd from the Kingly Palace where The Streets with Gold are pav'd The Walls are Silver fine the Gates most clear Intire Gems engrav'd With wondrous Art the Windows glass most pure Which falls nor knocks can break The Drink from fear of venom still is sure Whoso virtue none can speak Whose comes there is at a place arriv'd Where neither want nor death Nor any grief is known a place contriv'd For Saints therein to breath Whom God shall choose and to his Palace bring What need he more desire Then God himself that he may praises sing Kindled with holy fire But he whose hands unclean and heart defil'd These Mysteries forbear For you th' are not cease timely for y' are wild T' have neither wit nor fear AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Fifth Gate Which is PUTREFACTION The Fifth Gate Opened Which is PUTREFACTION Now we begin the Chapter of Putrefaction Without which Pole no Seed can multiply Which must be done only by continual action Of heat in the Body moist not manually For Bodies else may not be altered naturally WE have already run through four Gates the first being opened the rest stand open at will so that thou hast need only to enter The course and method of Philosophers now doth lead us to the Gate of Putrefaction a horrible Gate whose entrance is dark with Cimmerian night dreadful with many windings and turnings And yet it is a Gate so necessary that unless you pass through it you may never expect to reap fruit from your labour for without it can be no Life nor Generation much less desired Multiplication therefore saith the Poet Felices atrum quotquot habere queant The cause of this death or corruption or rottenness proceeds from the action of continual heat not so much of the external Fire of the Athanor as of the Compound within it self in which the Fire of the Water which is against Nature doth open the perfect Body by continual contrition and decoction and so le ts loose its Sulphur that was incarcerate which is Fire of Nature that so between these two in continual action and passion together with the external heat continually acting the whole Compound is brought to corruption being sometimes roasted with external heat which doth sublime the moisture which again of its own accord returns continually and doth moisten the Earth so long until by reason of the heat it have drunk up the moisture wholly and then it dyes And unless thou see this sign of rotting of thy Compound which is done in a black colour a stinking odour and with a discontinuity of parts thy labour will still be in vain for thou mayst never expect what thou desirest to have a new form brought in till the old form be corrupted and put off Sith Christ doth witness without the Grain of Wheat Dye in the Ground increase thou mayst none get And in likewise without the Matter putrefie It may in no wise truly be alterate Neither thy Elements may be divided kindly Nor the Conjunction of them perfectly celebrate That therefore thy labour be not frustrate The privity of our putrefying well understand Or ever thou take this Work in hand THis is so constant to Natures constant proceedings that the painful Husbandman that he may have an increased Harvest commits his precious Seed to the Ground in it to rot and to be corrupted that so a new Life may spring from the old dead Body nor doth he ever expect increase so long as it remains in his Garner Right so we so long as our Material principles continue in their own nature and form they are but of a single value for Gold and Mercury are two such principles that they will for ever delude as many as proceed to work on them in a Sophistical way for whatever the Artist may think they will remain the same unto the end of the World unless pure Sol being mixed with its own pure and appropriated Mercury and set in a due heat of digestion there arise a mutual action and passion between them which without the laying on of the Artists hands will tend to a new Generation For in a convenient Fire in which the Compound may perpetually and uncessantly boyl and the subtle parts may ascend and circulate upon the gross without intermission the most digested Virtue or Soul of the fixed Body which is his basis of Tincture will be extracted by the Water and this will mix it self with the pure Spirit of the Water and with this it will ascend and return until a total separation be made of the pure from the impure and the subtle from the gross Then shall the Body draw down its Soul again and by the power of the most High it shall be united and with it the Spirit of life shall be joyned also so that all three shall become one with an union indissolvable but all this pre-supposeth a Putrefaction or Corruption of one form else cannot there be an Introduction of another Therefore since this mystery of Putrefaction is not more secret then necessary so necessary that without it there is nothing can be done to purpose that is to say with profit I shall be a little plain and full in the prosecution of this mystery For in the knowledge of this consists all that is required to make a Philosopher All the intentions of the Artist must be only so to prepare and order things that he may be sure of this terminus and when he is there come he is as sure a Master as if he had the Stone in his Cabinet By the failing of this sign the Operator is always to turn either backward to seek out some other principles or forward or to the right hand or to the left but when he is Master of this he then can fail in nothing but in the Regimen of the outward heat And Putrefaction may thus defined be After Philosophers definition to be of Bodies the slaying And in our Compound a division of things three The killed Bodies into Corruption forth leading And after unto Regeneration them ableing For things being in the Earth without doubt Be engendred of Rotation of the Heavens about THe definition that the Philosophers give of this Operation is perpetually Allegorical for this Gate they have named by all Metaphors almost in the World especially from death and dead men therefore they allegorize the Vessel in this station to Grave or Tomb and emblematically discover this Operation by the types of Skuls dead Bones and rotten Carcasses according to which Metaphors they call Putrefaction the
death of the Compound For when they saw the Body with the Water to melt in the Fire to flow and to boyl they called this Magnesia when they saw the Water partly to ascend and partly to descend and partly to remain below so that at once there was both a Sublimation in vapour and a Motion of what was below they said that it was the Spirit of the Water that ascended or more Airy part and the more Fiery part which rejoyceth most to be united to and hidden in Earth remained below for that was more capable of the Fire and did better agree with it as with its like which because it did so uncessantly swell and boyl and rage at the bottom and make the Body begin to change its colour they said it was Fire against Nature Again when they saw the ascending Vapour to change colour they said it was the Soul of the Bodies was mixed with the Spirit which because it was green they said it was a vegetative Soul and Fire of Nature Now when the Body below began to thicken they said this was an Hermaphroditical Body because part of the Water always remained below and made the Body to boyl and bubble and flow and therefore this they called a new Body compounded of two Bodies the Sun and the Moon the Man and the Wife which because it grew to a slimy consistence they named it Limus or Limbus Hyle and a Chaos or Terra Adamica When this Body began to grow very black and to send up foul Exhalations yellowish blewish and black they said this was Death and Corruption which followed the separation of the Soul from the Body Now when they see the Souls to be again united and to remain below together they knew that the Soul and Spirit were Immortal that is the Tincture or Vital Balsam was Incorruptible and because they see them again unite they knew the Soul and Spirit would renew the Bodies and this seeming Corruption was but the natural step to a glorious Regeneration for if the Souls be again united to the Bodies they will surely regenerate them and renew them and make them incorruptible for if the Spirits had not returned to this union they might only have expected the Exhalation of them for Spiritual Tinctures or Essences cannot be destroyed by corruption in many Vegetals much less in the most perfect of Minerals and Metals The union then of the Souls with the Bodies argues evidently a hidden purity under the apparent rottenness which will after Purification be exalted to transcendent Glory Hereupon they said that the Spirit and Soul which were above were the Heavenly Quintessence and the Body below was the Earth and this Circulation of Spirits were but as the Circulation of the Heavens round about the Earth and the falling drops were but as the influential dew which did cause the Earth to fructifie and the blackness and darkness were but the Winter Latitude which with its Clouds and droppings do mellow and fertilize the Earth to shoot forth with the more beautiful varieties in the Springâ—â— And therefore like as I have said before Thine Elements commixt and wisely coequate Thou keep in temperate heat eschewing evermore That they by violent heat be not incinerate To powder dry unprofitably Rubificate But into powder black as the Crows Bill With heat of our Bath or else of our Dunghill FOr this cause they looked upon this as a secret mysterious yet very natural Operation whereby the most solid and perfect Minerals are by Nature so applied one to another and cultivated that the very Earth or Ground should be found in which this noble Tree of the Hesperides may be planted and grow the Matrix or Womb should be prepared in which this noble Off-spring may again enter and be born again Therefore what by long Experience and profound Meditation Philosophers have found out and seen that also they committed and communicated unto us so that we also are made fellow Heirs of this great Treasure and we shall as faithfully communicate our knowledge for thy Instruction First then take thy Body which is Gold and thy Water which is Mercury the one ready made by Nature to thy hand the other thou must Prepare for it is not to be found in the Land of the Living but must be made Nature here is at a non-plus and so is Art taken asunder but both together effect it Mix these together in due proportion so as I have often told thee then set them to the Fire to decoct and give them a convenient heat in which they may boyl ascend and descend perpetually without any intermission night or day But especially and before all things be careful in your Internal heat to wit the proportion of your Water for your Sulphur that you must add and supply to it in the beginning of your Work in its Preparation is that which doth perform all the work within without which your External heat is of no value for it is of it self uneffectual If then thou accend this heat so much as that it predominate it will not then dissolve the Bodies as thou expectest but contrarywise burn the Flowers before they are extracted from the depth of their Marrow this thou mayst easily do either if thy Arsnick be not made as it ought or else the number of Eagles exceeded or the proportion of thy Water to thy Body not agreeing to the number of Eagles or thy Glass not well proportioned to thy Matter it will easily burn if thy Glass be too big for so the moisture will so much be dispersed about the Concave that it will not return before the Earth below be left too dry I have given Rules easily to avoid all these inconveniences And on the other hand be sure that thou do not erre in too little heat let thy Water have Fire enough within it to make a true division and corruption which if either thy Arsnick have not sufficient Fiery virtue or if the union of this and thy Water be not well attended but slightly performed or the Purgation of thy Water be not throughly made each Eagle for so two or three Eagles may not add the virtue of one or if thy number of Eagles be not just or thy proportion of quantity be not duly observed Therefore follow my advice and be careful in both these particulars and then let your External heat be so that your Compound may boyl and sublime which for its similitude is called a Balneum so long till the Vapours cease and are retained within then will the Compound rot which for its great likeness is called our Dunghill Vntil the time that Nights be passed ninety In moist heat keep them for any thing Soon after by blackness thou shalt espy That they draw fast to putrefying FIrst then our Operations begin in humido for in the beginning moisture it prevails and is called the Phlegmatick Constitution of our Embrio and this is called the Reign of the Woman which
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
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
think that God bestows upon any of us what we enjoy for our own Merits but of his free Grace yet withal let me exhort any one who shall set his Studies this way to address himself to the Author and Fountain of Goodness for his help that he may have grace to honour God in the use of so great a Talent For I perswade my self that whomever God shall appoint to be Heir of such a Talent that he will give him a heart to improve it aright or else he will add to his Judgment for the abuse of so great a Blessing For whoever shall be wanton and dissolute and live without the fear of God what may he not do with such an Art unless God restrain him as certainly he will hiding this Secret from him or making it to him a snare and trap to betray his Life into the hands of covetous men of the World as many have found it by sad experience Therefore the Lord give both me and thee that grace that he may be continually before our Eyes The Alpha and Omega of our Thoughts Words and Actions Even so Amâ—n In the Beginning when thou madest all of nought a globous matter and dark under confusion by him the beginning c. FIrst then cast thine Eyes upon the Works of God and behold that work of his hands Consider how the glorious work of Creation was begun by him even by Christ for whose sake this very Science is communicated unto the Sons of Men as Bernardus Trevisan witnesseth who in his Epistle to Thomas of Bononia saith of this work That it is done Christi Gratia for Christs sake Consider how out of one Mass the Lord God by his powerful Command made all things to appear that are in Heaven or in Earth the heavenly Bodies with their Influences above and the earthly Matter below which by the Rotation of the Heavens produce all sublunary products through the word of his Mouth Above all which and in all which God is he is the Maker and the Lord of all above all blessed for ever who hath purchased to himself a People and redeemed them and they shall reign with him for ever and ever For as of one Mass was made all things right so in our practice must it be APply all this to the work of this Mastery Analogically and Allegorically for as the Lord made all the works which we see so he did lay them all under his powerful word of Command by which they continue to be what they are and are carried with an uniform motion to that first Pattern or Draught of things All our Secrets of one Image must spring AS then out of one mixed confused Mass all things had an actual existence according to their several kinds so out of one Image all these Secrets must flow Truth doth not consist in Heterogeneity but in Unity for God is one and his works uniform and the more Noble any thing is the nearer to Simplicity As in Philosophers Books whoso list to see TO this the Sentences of the Philosophers concur as many as have truly understood the Secret as Morien often and plentifully witnesseth Geber Trevisan and many others The thing is but one in kind though two in number and though more things are used yet till they be all brought to an oneness of Nature they are not fit to enter into this work Our Stone is called the Lesser World ANd therefore our Stone is resembled to Man who although he have a Wife different from him in Sex yet one with him in kind in which sence it is called the Microcosm or Less World for indeed next to Man who is the Image of God it is the true little System of the Great World I shall not particularize here how for in its place it will fall in seasonably One and Three THis Stone is also called Trine or Trinity in Vnity from the Homogeneity of the Matter as Trevisan saith Our Stone is made of one Root that is of two Mercurial Substances c. This Trinity is discerned in the Components for first there is the Body which is Sol and the Water of Mercury in which besides its Mercuriality there is a spiritual seed of Sulphur which is the secret Fire This is the Trinity these are called the Body the Soul and the Spirit the Body is the dead Earth which increaseth not without the celestial Vertue the Spirit is the Soul of our Air or Chameleon which is also of a two-fold composure yet made one inseparably the Soul is the Bond of Mercury without which our Fire never appears nor can appear for it is naked it inhabits the Fiery-Dragon and it yields his Soul to the true Saturnia and is embraced by it and both become one together bearing the stamp of the most High even the Oriental Lucifer the Son of the Morning This Soul is Chalyb's Magical Volatile and very tender the true Minera of Sol out of which Sol naturally proceeds which I my self know to be true and have spoken of it in my little Latin Treatise called Introitus apertus ad occlusum Regis palatium This is true Sulphur which is imbibed by the Mercuriality of Saturnia and notes it with the Regal Signet and being united and revived into a Mineral Water by the Mediation of Diana's Doves it is the sharp Spirit which in the Water moves the Body to putrefie Thus is the Trinity proportionable to wit three Natures in the first Mixture the Work is carried an end to perfect Complement distinctly according to the Vertue of a Body Soul and Spirit for the Body would be never penetrative were it not for the Spirit nor would the Spirit be permanent in its super-perfect Tincture were it not for the Body nor could these two act one upon another without the Soul for the Spirit is an invisible thing nor doth it ever appear without another Garment which Garment is the Soul In this it exerciseth its vertue this Soul as it is drawn from the Saturnia solid and dry is named our Air or rather the Chameleon which is an airy Body changing its hue according to every Object it beholds so our Air is of an astonishing Nature out of which I know all Metals may be drawn yea even Sol and Luna without the Transmuting Elixir of which in my little Latine Treatise which was the Congest of mine own experience I spake fully This Air being dissolved into Water Mineral hath in it two of our Trinity united so really that in a short digestion the spiritual inhabiting invisible Sulphur will without addition congeal the Mercury in which it is and make a visible congelated substance of Luna and then Sol. Thus this Trinity is indeed Vnity one being Gold mature fixt and digested in act the other Gold volatile white and crude yet in posse to be made most fixt and solid by naked digestion It is not then a delusion that Philosophers speak and write for trust me Viderunt nudam sine
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
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
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
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
Compound as that in it the Body through the Pontick virtue of the Water may have its Sulphur let loose and so these two Sulphurs mixing together may bring the whole to rotting or Putrefaction By which putridness a Ferment is engendred which as it doth volatize all things naturally so it doth quicken this gross dead Body in so much that it mounts aloft upon the Fire with the Water and riseth a new glorious Body mixed with the Water so that both being become one together the Spirit borrows from the Body permanency and the Body from the Spirit obtaineth penetrativeness so that both make one coelestial and terrestrial Compound named the Regenerate Body and Stone of Paradise incombustible All which is occasioned by the continuance and not failing of heat both inwardly and outwardly by which the moisture is circulated and depurated without which the seminal virtue would be extinct which only vegetates by heat and moisture And if once the seminal virtue were kill'd the remaining Compound would be no better then a dead unprofitable thing which could never be recovered so that if either moisture or heat within or convenient heat without should fail there is nothing to be expected but according to the Poet Cuncta ruent quae non ulla reparaveris Arte Therefore at the beginning our Stone thou take And bury each in other with their Grave Then equal between them a marriage make To lig together six weeks let them have Their Seed conceived kindly nourish and save â—rom the ground of their Grave not rising the while Which secret point doth many one beguile THis then is the process of our Work take at the first our Stone that is the true Material principles thereof which are one in kind and two in number mix these together in a due proportion then shalt thou see as follows First thy Feminine nature will so embrace thy Masculine as to extract from him his Seed that is the most digested virtue so shall the Body dye and the Water shall intomb it The Water by Cohabitation shall contract amity and friendship with the Body for it is nothing else but a Feminine Body of the same Stock which when they are united and joyned this is called the Marriage of Gabritius with Beya Then shall the Vapours cease and all Exhalations shall be withheld from ascending or descending during the space of 40 days or 42 at most in which time though thou see not the former Circulation rejoyce for now the Body begins to retain his Soul in a black colour Now the Queen hath conceived the Kingly Seed which must be nourished with gentle convenient Fire till it wax strong and become a puissant triumphant Champion whom no Earthly force is able to withstand Thou must of necessity then let them have this prefixed time for their solitude and retirement in which time the fixt and the volatile the cold and the moist the hot and the dry do learn to agree each with other being reconciled in this Head of the Crow which is the conversion of Natures into a discontinuous Calx finer then Atoms of the Sun This Operation as it is the Wyld and Labyrinth of all who seek this Art in vain so it is the Capo di Bona Esperanza to as many as attain to the perfect fight hereof for now most of the difficulties are passed which they are like to meet withall in this their Voyage to the Oriental Indies This time of Conception with easie heat abide The blackness appearing shall tell thee when they die For they together like liquid Pitch that tide Shall swell and bubble settle and putrefie Shining colours therein thou shalt espy Like to the Rainbow marvellous to sight The Water then beginneth to dry upright THou must then be very carefull that thy over-heat do not now hinder their Conjunction for now is the main fear of burning thy Flowers which thou mayst easily do and make these Natures become a half Red or Orange colour instead of the true Crows Bill Whereas if thy external heat be so gentle as not to extinguish motion thou shalt find that in this period thy Natures shall both of them die together for one is not killed nor dieth without the other which death in its approach thou shalt discover by the appearing blackness And when once the Crow shall begin to shew it self know that thou shalt see a terrible day for thou must expect to be in the heat of the shore and in the storm of the inraged Sea which now the Winds are abated after a long and strong blowing of them doth arise in waves raging and taking on and raising the filth from the very bottom so that all becomes like to a troubled Glass of Ink or melting boiling Pitch After this blackness which shall endure for a long and tedious time thou shalt see various and glorious colours to succeed such as thou never hast seen for all the colours that the mind of Man possibly can imagine shall then present themselves to view which shall be an evident token to thee that the moist and dark Dominion of the Woman doth now begin to vanish and instead thereof the Man beginneth to rule who first dryeth up the moisture of the Woman with which there will vanish blackness and the changable colours and after all shall be fixed in a sparkling dry white Powder which is the Stone of Paradise For in moist Bodies heat working temperate Engendreth blackness first of all which is Of kindly Conjunction the token assignate And of true putrefying remember this For then perfectly to alter thou canst not miss And thus by the Gate of blackness thou must come in To the light of Paradise in whiteness if thou wilt win IN the beginning therefore of our Work through the Co-operation of heat both internal and external and the moisture of the Matter concurring our Body gives a blackness like unto Pitch which for the most part happens in 40 or at the most in 50 days This colour discovers plainly that the two Natures are united and if they are united they will certainly operate one upon another and alter and change each other from thing to thing and from state to state until all come to one Nature and substance Regenerate which is a new Heavenly Body But before there can be this Renovation the Old man necessarily must be destroyed that is thy first Body must rot and be corrupted and lose its form that it may have it repaid with a new form which is a thousand times more noble So then our Work is not a forced and apparent but a natural and radical Operation in which our Natures are altered perfectly in so much that the one and the other having fully lost what they were before yet without change of kind they become a third thing Homogeneal to both the former Thus they who sow in tears shall reap in joy and he who goeth forth mourning and carrying precious Seed shall return with an abundance
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
Sir GEORGE RIPLEY'S EPISTLE TO King Edward the Fourth UNFOLDED THis Epistle as it was immediately written to a King who was in his Generation both wise and valiant so it doth comprize the whole secret both learnedly described and yet artificially vailed Yet as the Author testifieth that in this Epistle he doth plainly untie the main knot So I can and do testifie with him that there is nothing desirable for the true attaining of this Mystery both in the Theory and Practick of it which is not in this short Epistle fully taught This then I intend as a Key to all my former writings and assure you on my faithful word that I shall not speak one word doubtfully or Mystically as I have in all my other writings seeming to aver some things which taken without a Figure are utterly false which we did only to conceal this Art This Key therefore we intend not to make common and shall intreat you to keep it secret to your self and not to communicate it except it be to a sure friend who you are confident will not make it publick And this request we make upon very good grounds knowing that all our writings together are nothing to this by reason of the contradictions which we have woven into them which here is not done in the least measure I shall therefore in this Epistle take up a new Method and that different from the former and shall first draw up the substance of the Philosophy couched in this Epistle into several conclusions and after elucidate the same The first Conclusion is drawn from the Ninth Stave of this Epistle the eight first Staves being only complementall and that is That as all things are multiplied in their kind so may be Metalls which have in themselves a capacity of being transmuted the imperfect into perfect The second Conclusion in the Tenth Stave is That the main ground for the possibility of transmutation is the possibility of reduction of all Metalls and such Minerals as are of metallick principles into their first Mercurial matter The third Conclusion is in the Eleventh Stave that among so many Metaline and Mineral Sulphurs and so many Mercuries there are but two Sulphurs that are related to our work which Sulphurs have their Mercuries essentially united to them The fourth Conclusion from the same Stave is That he who understands these two Sulphurs Mercuries aright shal find that the one is the most pure red Sulphur of Gold which is Sulphur in manifesto and Mercurius in occulto and that other is most pure white Mercury which is indeed true Quicksilver in manifesto and Sulphur in occulto these are our two Principles The fifth Conclusion from the Twelfth Stave is That if a mans Principles be true and his Operations regular his Event will be certain which Event is no other then the true Mystery These Conclusions are but few in number but of great weight or concernment the Amplification Illustration and Elucidation therefore of them will make a son of Art truly glad STAVE IX In the Edition 1591 but in Esq Ashmole's Theatrum it is Stave 8. But notwithstanding for peril that may befall If I dare not here plainly the knot unbind Yet in my writing I will not be so mysticall But that by study the true Knowledge you may find How that each thing is multiplyed in its kind And how the likeness of Bodies Metalline be tranâ—mutable I will declare that if you feel me in your mind My writing you shall find true and no fained Fable FOr the First Forasmuch as it is not for our purpose here to invite any to the Art only intending to lead and guide the sons of Art We shall not prove the possibility of Alchymy by many Arguments having done it abundantly in another Treatise He then that will be incredulous let him be incredulous he that will cavil let him cavil But he whose mind is perswaded of the truth of this Art and of its Dignity let him attend to what is in the Illustration of these Five Conclusions discovered and his heart shall certainly rejoyce We shall therefore briefly Illustrate this 1st Conclusion and insist there more largely where the secrets of the Art are most couched For this first which concludes in effect the truth of the Art and its validity he that would therein be more satisfied in it let him read the Testimony of the Philosophers And he that will not believe the Testimony of so many men being most of them men of renown in their own times he will cavil also against all other Arguments We shall only hold to Ripley's Testimony in this our Key who in the Fourth Stave assures the King that at Lovain he first saw the greatest and most perfect secrets namely the two Elixirs and in his following Verses craved his confident credit that he himself hath truly found the way of secret Alchymy and promiseth the discovery of it to the King only upon condition of secrecy And in the Eighth Stave though he protests never to write it by Pen yet proffers the King at his pleasure to shew him occularly the Red and White Elixir and the working of them which he promiseth will be done for easie costs in time So then he that will doubt the truth of this Art must account this Famous Author for a most simple mad Sophister to write and offer such things to his Prince unless he were able in effect to do what he promised from which imputation his Writings and also the History of him of his Fame Gravity and Worth will sufficiently clear him STAVE X. As the Philosopher in the Book of Meteors doth write The likeness of Bodies Metalline be not transmutable But after he added these words of more delight Without they be reduced to their beginning materiable Wherefore such Bodies which in Nature be liquiable Mineral Metalline may be Mercurizate Conceive you may this Science is not opinionable But very true by Raymond and others determinate WE come to the second Conclusion the substance of which is that all Metalls and Bodies of Metalline Principles may be reduced to their first Mercurial Matter And this is the main and chief ground for the possibility of Transmutation On this we must insist largly and fully for trust me this is the very hinge on which our secrets hang. First Then know that all Metalls and several Minerals have Mercury for their next matter to which for the most part nay indeed always there adheres and is Con-coagulated an external Sulphur which is not Metalline but distinguishable from the internal Kernel of the Mercury This Sulphur is not wanting even in common Argent Vive by the Mediation of which it may be precipitated into the form of a drie Powder Yea and by a Liquor well known to us though nothing helping the Art of Transmutation it may be so fixed that it may endure all Fires the Test and Coppel and this without the addition of any thing to it but
by fire separated The Mercury thus separated is spoiled of its Sulphur when as indeed there needs or is required only a depuration of the Sulphur by separating the impure from the pure but these Salts having separated the Sulphur do leave the Mercury worse that is more estranged from a Metallick nature than it was before for in its Composition that Sulphur of Saturn will not burn for though it be Sublimed Calcined made Sugar or Vitrified yet by Fire and Fluxes it still returns to the same it was in before but its Sulphur being as is aforesaid separated will take fire if joyned with Salt-peter even as common Sulphur doth so that the Salts act on the Sulphur of which they rob the Mercury but on the Mercury they act not for want of Ferment which is not to be found but only amongst Homogeneal things Therefore the Ferment of Bread Leavens not a Stone nor doth the Ferment of any Animal or Vegetable Ferment a Metal or Mineral So then though out of Gold thou mightest obtain a Mercury by the help of the Liquor of the first Ens of Salt yet that Mercury would never accomplish our work whereas on the other side Mercury made out of Gold by our Mercury though there be three parts of our Mercury to one of Gold This Mercury I say will by continual digestion accomplish the whole work marvel not then that our Mercury is more powerful which is prepared by Mercury For certainly the Ferment which cometh between the compound Body and the water causeth a death and a regeneration it doth that which nothing in the world can do Besides it severs from Mercury a terrestreity which burns like a coal and an Hydropical humour melting in common water but the residue is acuated by a Spirit of Life which is our true embryonated Sulphur of our water not visible yet working visibly We conclude then that all operations for our Mercury but by common Mercury and our Body according to our Art are erroneous and will never produce our Mysterie although they be otherwise Mercuries never so wonderfully made For as the Author of the New light saith No Water in any Island of the Philosophers was wholsom but that which was drawn out of the reigns of Sol and Luna Wilt thou know what that means Mercury in its pondus and incombustibility is Gold fugitive our Body in its purity is called the Philosophers Luna being far more pure than the imperfect Metals and its Sulphur also as pure as the Sulphur of Sol not that it is indeed Luna for it abides not in the fire Now in the composition of these three First our common Mercury and the two Principles of our compound there intercedes the Ferment of Luna out of which though it be a Body proceeds yet a speciâ—icated odour yea and oft the Pondus of it is diminished If the Compound be much washt after it is sufficiently clean So then the Ferment of Sol and Luna intercedes in our composition which Ferment begets an off-spring more noble then it self a thousand fold whereas shouldst thou work on our compound body by a violent way of Salts thou shouldst have the Mercury by far less noble then the Body the Sulphur of the Body being separated and not exalted by such a progress STAVE XI In the said Book the Philosopher speaketh also Therein if it please Your Highness for to read Of divers Sulphurs and especially of two And of two Mercuries joyned to them indeed Whereby he doth true understanders lead To the knowledge of the Principles which be only true Both Red Moist Pure and White as I have espied Which be nevertheless found but of very few WE now come to the Third Conclusion which is that among all Metalline and Mineral Sulphurs there are only Two that belong to our Work which Two have their Mercuries essentially united with them This is the truth of our secrets though we to seduce the unwary do seem to aver the contrary for do not think that because we do insinuate two ways therefore we really mean as we say for verily as witnesseth Ripley There is no true Principle but one nor have we but one matter nor but one way of working upon that matter nor but one regimen of heat and one linear way of proceeding These two Sulphurs as they are Principles of our Work they ought to be Homogeneal for it is only Gold Spiritual that we seek First White then Red which Gold is no other then that which the vulgar see but they know not the hidden Spirit that is in it This Principle wants nothing but composition and this composition must be made with our other crude white Sulphur which is nothing but Mercury vulgar by frequent cohobation of it upon our Hermaphroditical body so long till it become a fiery water Know therefore that Mercury hath in it self a Sulphur which being un-active our Art is to multiply in it a living active Sulphur which comes out of the loins of our Hermaphroditieal body whose Father is a Metal and his Mother a Mineral Take then the most beloved Daughter of Saturn whose Arms are a Circle Argent and on it a Sable Cross on a Black Field which is the signal note of the great world espouse her to the most warlike God who dwells in the house of Aries and thou shalt find the Salt of Nature with this Salt acuate thy water as thou best knowest and thou shalt have the Lunary bath in which the Sun will be amended And in all truth I assure thee that although thou hadst our Body Mercurialized without the addition of Mercury or of the Mercury of any of the Metals made per se that is without the addition of Mercury it would not be in the least profitable unto thee for it is our Mercury only which hath a Celestial form and power which it receives not only nor so much from the Compound Body or Principles as from the Fermental virtue which proceeds from the composition of both the Body and the Mercury by which is produced a wonderful Creature So then let all thy care be to marry Sulphur with Sulphur that is our Mercury which is impregnated which Sulphur must be espoused with our Sol then hast thou two Sulphurs married and two Mercuries of one off-spring whose Father is the Sun and Moon the Mother The Fourth Conclusion makes all perfectly plain which hath been said before namely that these two Sulphurs are the one most pure Red Sulphur of Gold and the other of most pure clean White Mercury These are our two Sulphurs the one appears a coagulated Body yet carries its Mercury in its belly the other is in all its proportions true Mercury yet very clean and carries its Sulphur within its self though hidden under the form and fluxibility of Mercury Sophisters are here in a Labyrinth for because they are not acquainted with Metalline love they work in things altogether heterogeneal or if they work upon
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
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
caused to run these Springs make but one Well whose Waters appear dry the humidity being sealed the Well it self is surrounded with an Arsenical Wall the slimy bottom abounds with the First Ens of Mineral Salt and Sulphur which acuate the Water of the first Well whose primary quality is Coldness being thus acuated it becomes so powerful a Menstruum and so pleasant to the Metals that for its peculiar Vertue it is chosen for to be the Bath of the Sun and Moon For I will truely now thee excite to understand well Mercuries three BUt because one Book never is sufficient in this Mastery to discover all that is to be known and other Authors write variously of Mercury Attend further what I have to say to thee concerning this point We have in our work properly three Mercuries of which one is to be by the Philosopher prepared of which I have spoken and this being joynd with the perfect Body and set to digest the Glass is shut and then in this first Composition is the Matter called Rebis that is two things to wit in Number for you may yet separate each from other in its intire nature These two being joyned do operate so within the Vessel till the Compound become a black Powder which is then called the Ashes of the Platter This Powder relenteth into a black Broth which is called Elixir or Water extracted by Elixation which is reiterate Liquefaction This Elixir is divided into a more subtile part which is called Azoth and the grosser part is called Leton which is by Azoth washed and whitened In Rebis the Matters are confused in Elixir they are divided and in Azoth they are conjoyned with an inseparable union The Keys which of this Science be THese Menstruums or Mercuries are the very Keys of this Science The first is the Philosophers Key the other two are Natures Keys Reymund his Menstrues doth them call THey are called by the wise men Menstrues in three respects first for the secresie of them as those Lunary Tributes of Women are hid from common view so these Mercuries from vulgar Searchers Secondly for the Prognosticks of them as those in Women betoken maturity to conceive so these are called Menstrues because they are fit for procreation Thirdly in regard of the office of them as those in Women are accounted nutritive for the Embrion so our Child is nourished by these to perfect age and strength Let me add a fourth reason and that is in respect of the time the Philosophical Preparation will hardly give thee thy first Menstruum fit for thy use in less than a month And after conjunction thy first Menstruum will begin to hold of the nature of the Body in another month and then thou shalt see a show of the second Menstruum but wait till another month and thou shalt see thy second Menstruum compleat then yet wait a third month and thou shalt see a show of the third Menstruum which in the fourth month will perfectly exuberate and then with it thou shalt soon see perfected Sulphur of Nature for it is Fire of Nature and in this first Exaltation is the white Stone perfected Without them truly no Truth is done HE then that knoweth not the Secret of our Menstruals let him forbear the practice of the Work for verily he may expect nothing but a sophistical Delusion instead of the true Work of Nature He is like a man that would enter an inaccessable Castle without a Key or shoot in a Bow without a string But two of them be superficial NOw that you may know our Secrets exactly we shall faithfully discover unto you our Experience as cordially as a Brother may declare to a Brother and shall reveal what I never found yet revealed in any Author There are in our Mercury three Mercurial Substances which may well be called Menstrues the one the more gross part which though it be a Water yet it being the most palpable part and visible may be termed the Body of the Water the last is a Fiery Form which is the Blood of Cadmus this is a real invisible form which is essentially and formally Sol Volatile the second is the mean Soul which Philosophers without Equivocation call Saturn's Child the middle substance of these three are made into one wonderful Mercury which hath not its like in the world Now for the superficiality of the two first Menstrues or Mercuries and the essentiality of the third know and understand for our speech will be very mysterious Know I say what it is to be superficial and what essential Essence you know is invisible and more formal then material which doth actuate the matter and ripens it but that which is superficial is visible and may be seen and is more material and passive Now those two first which are superficial are the Water and the Blood the essential Menstrue is the Spirit which all are in one yet distinguished in number though not in kind The third Essential to Sun and Moon SO then two are material passive substances which are united in our sophical Mercury the third is an active essence which is hid in our Mercury which is essential to Sun and Moon because it is a Fire which is Sol volatile and as the Artist may govern this Mercury it will digest the passive Principles either into Sol or Luna at the Philosophers pleasure Their Properties I will declare right soon I Shall by and by in its place describe to you all the Properties of these three Menstrues when I come to it in the mean time take notice that by this Mercury in which are three Mercuries or Menstrues the perfect Bodies will be calcined and then dissolved into Mercury which is not then so properly called a Menstrue for it is the Fruit it self called Azoth or Virgins Milk which is a digestion beyond the Menstrues And Mercury of Metals essential Is the Principle of our Stone material THe Bodies when they are dissolved do transmute the foresaid Mercuries by their own ferment into their own nature for the Fire of Nature assimilates all that nourisheth it to its own likeness and then our Mercury or Menstrue vanisheth that is it is swallowed up in the Solary Nature and all together make but one universal Mercury by intimate union and this Mercury is the material Principle of the Stone for before our Mercury as it was compounded of three Mercuries had in it two which were superficial and the third essential to Sol and Luna only not to the Stone for Nature would produce these two out of it by artificial decoction but when the perfect Bodies are dissolved they transmute the Mercury that dissolved it and then there is no more repugnancy in it then is there no longer a distinction between superficial and essential but all is become essential And this is that one matter of the Stone â—hat one thing which is the subject of all Wonders In Sol and Luna our Menstrues are not seen WHen
this Circulation But none which been unclean THis Blackness many erroneously conceive to be uncleanness but it is not so for it is only the Sepulcher of our King in which though he seem to have lost what he was yet from hence he shall arise what he never was before Except one ANd verily there is nothing of an unclean nature that entreth our Composition except one thing which is the Instrument moving the Gold to putrifie and in regard that it doth naturally incline the Body to putrifie and is as it were the very grave of it it is called by some Philosophers Aqua foetida and by some Mortis Immundities yet indeed it is not in its own nature unclean but made pure as pure as the Art of the Artist can make it with the help of Nature joyning Consanguinty with Consanguinity Which is usually Named by Philosophers their Lyon Green THis hidden Body or rather Chaos the Philosophers have highly extolled and deeply concealed but they usually call it their Green Lyon which many mistaking apply to Venus and some to Vitriol which is all one in a manner Vitriol being only Copper corroded by an embryonated Salt but Fools saith Ripley in his Errors call it the Green Lyon I shall discover this Subject to you so far as I dare in this following Song The Learned SOPHIES FEAST WHoso would lasting and eternal Fame Deserve Learn thou the Lyon Green to tame But this before you can by Art attain To study him to know thou must be fain Nor is it trust me for a stupid Fool Nor yet for one brought up in vulgar School I shall him therefore lively out pourtray Lest from this Banquet you go lean away This Song I stile the Learned Sophies Feast Prepare your self to come a worthy Guest With Mind attentive to my words give heed Lest you instead of Meat on Fancies feed This horrid Beast which we our Lyon call Hath many other Names that no man shall The truth perceive unless that God direct And on his darkened Mind a Light reflect T is not because this Subject doth consist Of Animal Components he that list May well conceive that we do therefore use The name of Beasts nor is it to abuse The Readers he whoever so doth think With stupid Sots himself doth hereby link But it 's because of the transcendent force It hath and for the rawness of its source Of which the like is no where to be seen That it of them is nam'd the Lyon Green Now listen and I shall to you disclose The Secret which times past hath like a Rose Been hedged so on every side with Briars That few could pluck it at their hearts desires There is a substance of Metalline Race If you the matter view whose louring face A Sophister would at first sight so scare That he it to approach would never dare The form thatâ—s visible is very vile And doth Metalline Bodies so defile That none to see it could be brought to think That thence should spring bright Phoebuâ— Pearly Drink And yet O strange a wonder to relate At this same Spring naked Diana sat Who horn'd Acteon for his ventrous peeping This Spring two dreadful Beasts have in their keeping Which drive away rash Searchers to their wo Them to inchant the Art who do not know Yet further for to answer your desire I say this subject never felt the fire Of Sulphur Metalline but is more crude Then any Mineral which doth delude Th' unwary and in Fire fugitive 'T is found th' impure away the pure doth drive And its Components are A Mercury Most pure though tender with a Sulphur dry Incarcerate which doth the flux restrain And as in shackles doth the same detain This Sulphur with malignant qualities Doth so the Mercury infect which with it lies That though they have no fundamental union Yet hereby is debarr'd the sweet communion Which otherwise would surely intercede Between this Virgin-Nymph which we call Lead And her dear Sister which in Silver streams Runs down abundantly then should the beams Of bright Apollo cause the Dews which fall From these commixed Waters from the tall Aspiring Mountains gliding through the Vales Fire to conceive of Nature which avails To warm the Bath for Sol in which he may Descend and wash and with fair Phebe play Till flesh and youth renewing they be able To shine with glory aye multiplicable Know then this Subject which the sure Base Of all our Secrets is and it uncase And chuse what thou shalt find of greatest price Leave Sophisters and follow my advice Be not deluded for the Truth is one 'T is not in many things this is our Stone At first appearing in a Garb defil'd And to deal plainly it is Saturn's Child His price is mean his venom very great His constitution cold devoid of heat Although 't is mixed with a Sulphur yet This Sulphur is combustible to get Another Sulphur Metalline and pure And mix with the Mercurial part be sure This Sulphur in the House of Aries seek There shall you find it and this is the Greek Alcides which with Jason Journey took To Colchos this is it which never Book As yet reveal'd and yet I will proceed And greater Mysteries unfold with speed Our Subject it is no ways malleable It is Metalline and its colour sable With intermixed Argent which in veins The sable Field with glittering Branches stains The pure parts from the impure thou shalt never With Fire or Water for this work dissever Nor with the hardest Iron dig it thence For Steel 'gainst this affordeth no defence So easily as any little Boy A Giant can suppress this can destroy Alcides Brest-plate with his Target stout And put opposing Armies to the rout Of Swords and Spears O wondrous force and yet The Sages this have seen when they did sit In Council how this Fury they might tame Which as unparallel'd they then did name Their Lyon Green they suffered him to prey On Cadmus Sociates and when the fray Was over they with Dian's Charms him ty'd And made him under Waters to abide And wash'd him clean and after gave him Wings To fly much like a Dragon whose sharp Springs Of fiery Water th' only way was found To cause Apollo his Harp-strings to sound This is the true Nymphs Bath which we did try And prov'd to be the Wise Mens Mercury IN this Song you have the Lyon Green so described that more I dare not more I cannot unless I should pen you down the Receipt verbatim which God and Reason forbids He is the mean the Sun and Moon between Of joyning Tinctures with perfectness LEarn then to know this Green Lyon and its preparation which is all in all in the Art it is the only knot untie it and you are as good as a Master for whatever then remains is but to know the outward Regimen of Fire for to help on Natures internal Work As Geber thereunto beareth witness MOreover be not various
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
own accord till the dry become moist again and till a Soul return then shall thy Tincture proceed forward to a new Germination and shall be indowed with a Vegetative Soul Govern thy Bath sweetly until thou have a Tincture of Citrine which is a sign that thy Water is now impregnated with the Oyl immarcessible Then is that Menstruum visible to sight THen shalt thou discover what before was hidden and see what before was invisible and shalt say with the Philosopher O Nature how thou makest Gold volatile that was most fixed Therefore have they passed one into another An Oyl is drawn out in the colour of Gold THis is our Virgins Milk of the Sun which is yellow with this and our perfect Tincture we make our Blessed Oyl which hath not its Peer among all the works of God next to the Immortal Soul of man the Glass of Tri-unity the Sabbath of perfection O happy they that attain to it Or like thereto out of fine red Lead YEt a succedaneum of this noble Medicine is found in the loyns of Saturn in the bowels of our despised Infant which some true and loyal Sons of Nature through the great mercy of God have attained without knowing our great Arcanum which a man would think marvellous This is our red Lead our Mercury essencificate and coagulated into a chaos of Spiritual Gold and after dissolved into a quintessence as red as Bloud which because it is made out of the very Essential Mercury of our Stone which is our first Water I shall leave it undiscovered which otherwise if it might be explained without danger of prostituting the other Secret to unworthy people I would for the good of Mankind proclaim it with Trumpets Which Raymund said when he was old Much more then Gold would stand in stead THis Oyl or Quintessence this Balsam of Health we do therefore prize for its wonderful virtue not so much for that by means of it Poverty that great snare may be avoided but for its wonderful prevailing excellency against all Diseases both of body and mind as witnesseth Lully Trevisan Artephius with that excellent Book intituled Aurea Hora or Consurgens Aurora For when he was for Age near dead He made thereof Aurum Potabile Which him revived as men might see BY vertue of this Quintessence Artephius testifieth that he lived above a thousand years Flammel also recordeth of it that it triumpheth over all the Miseries of the World Johannes de Laznioro is more bold and saith that if in the Agony of death a man should tast but a Grain of it all the mortal Pestilence would depart from him Since then this Knowledge is so wonderfully profitable being the very Looking-glass of Nature the Antidote against Poverty and Sickness and consequently the Cut-throat of Covetousness Pride Ambition and such like sordid Affections who would not bestow a little time in the Inquiry of it In which let me assure thee in the very words of Trevisan the Art is so plain that if it were nakedly described it would be contemptible And yet in vulgar Mechanicks how frequent is it for men to serve seven eight yea ten years Apprentiship to attain them And in some that are a little more ingenious how frequently are considerable sums of Money bestowed to boot Yet in this noble Art so far excelling all Humane Sciences as the Sun doth a Candle who will imploy himself with diligence unless it be some Money-minded Sots who seek only for Riches and yet how soon are even they weary So that few or none persist in their Inquiry save a few Roguish Sophisters who live by Cozening by reason of such the Art is scandalized and ill spoken of Yet trust me for I speak knowingly the Art is both true and easie yea so easie that if you did see the Experiment you could not believe it I made not five wrong Experiments in it before I found the truth although in some particular turnings of the Encheiresis I erred oft yet so as I in my error knew my self a Master and in less then full two years and a half of a vulgar Jgnoramus I became a true Adept and have the Secret through the goodness of God And that this is true there are those alive that can bear witness to this my writing which I penn'd for the sake of the Ingenious that they may have Ariadne's thread stretched out to guide them so with the blessing of God they shall by their own Experience see and know that I wrote nothing but what the Light of Experience far beyond all imaginary conjectures hath taught me to be true ANd now my Muse let it not irksome seem To thee of Natures Mysteries to sing Those hidden Mysteries which many deem Nought but delusions with them for to bring This is th' opinion of the Vulgar rude To whom there 's hardly any selcouth thing But seems a Juggling trick that would delude Their fancies with an empty wondering Therefore against it they with thundering words do ring There is a fiery Stone of Paradise So call'd because of its Celestial hew Named of Ancient years by Sages wise Elixir made of Earth and Heaven new Anatically mixt strange to relate Sought for by many but found out by few Above vicissitudes of Nature and by fate Immortal like a Body fixt to shew Whose penetrative vertue proves a Spirit true His property is as the Sages told Metals imperfect which before would burn Six to transmute into most perfect Gold And five into the finest Silver turn Not equalled by Metals of the Mine Which while some seek they madly seem to spurn The pricks which proves in th' end a bad design And gives them cause sadly at length to mourn And to bewail their destiny like men forlorn For why they do not well premeditate The nature of the thing they would attain The only thirst of Gain doth animate These Gold-adoring wretches who maintain Their mad expence with many a cursed lye Nor from false perjury will they refrain Thus they allure fools by flattery To trust their dotage for the hope of gain This last so long till in the suds they both remain Then Covetousness wrangles with Deceit And curses him for all his lewd expence The other being conscious of his cheat With subtle words doth make a sly defence But what is past can never be recall'd This grieves the Churl who vows for that offence He 'l have the Jugglers future pranks forestall'd Lays him in Gaol O monstrous change from thence The great Stone-maker through a Grate doth beg for pence But he who will a studious Searcher be Of Truth let him such Sophisters eschew And if he will but be advis'd by me Of false ways I 'le him warn and shew him true Beg humbly of thy God to be thy guide For thou must pass through hidden ways by few Traced and that thy suit be not deny'd Intreat of him thy heart for to renew Thus qualifi'd thou mayst thy Journey never
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
our Spirit ascended not in a living form it would all ascend and hang but ascending quick it returns again and moistens the Body 5. Our Distillation or Circulation is not without a constant motion of Separation for as the subtle is separated from the gross by Sublimation so the thick of that which is below is severed from the thin which is by continual boiling and decocting without a moments intermission Therefore saith Hermes thou shalt sever the subtle from the gross and the thick from the thin 6. Our tender Spirit learns every day more and more to suffer Fire and therefore saith Arnold boil it with a Fire daily increasing yet is it but one degree of Fire and that is boiling till the Womans Empire is vanquished and then there is another degree and that is roasting which hath two periods Fixation and Calcination therefore say Philosophers in the beginning Coque that is Boil for as much as the Stone is moist and at the end they say Assa that is Roast for then the Stone is dry 7. The periods of the strength of the Fire are in this time many every day if thou canst augment a little that it may increase insensibly and you will find the effect the more sweetly and speedily 8. The Philosophers in their description of the Fire and its degrees did more observe their matter and its capacity then the Fire it self 9. They chiefly liken their Work to Man's Generation and so they call their Compound Man therefore saith Ripley remember Man is the most Noble Creature 10. This is the true meaning of Arnold's four degrees of Fire Primus formetur ut sensus ei dominetur that is the Stone being compared to Man and its first moist Regimen to a Bath the first degree makes it sweat gently as a Bath to a Man which is less hot then he can suffer doth cause a gentle sweat Sensibus aequato gaudet natura secundo is the second degree in which sweat is exceedingly caused as a Bath which is as hot as a man can possibly suffer causes a most violent sweat Tertius excedit cum tolerantia laedit is the third degree which causeth bubbling and swelling and answers to that heat which will blister a mans hand for our Compound in this heat riseth in blisters which fall and rise continually Destructor sensus gaudet procedere quartus is the fourth heat of Congelation which takes away sense that is quickness and brings in siccity just as the cauterizing heat sears the flesh and drys the moisture Thus hiddenly did that subtle Sophister veil his Fires 11. Know that after 40 or 46 days continually boiling the moisture will begin to waste and the Compound will begin to dry which thou shalt know in that the boiling will begin to turn to a swelling like to Puff-paste or Leaveneddough 12. Know that in 36 days thou mayst have thy moisture begin to congeal if thou be exact in thy Fire and Proportions both inward and outward 13. Know that thy Glass must be thick and very strong and no less strongly closed lest it break with those winds which the first decoction will raise in thy Vessel 14. Let its neck be somewhat long and fastned that the motion which is in the Glass may not cause it by reason of the length and thickness of the neck and the Sublimation that is still in it in drops which make it heavy to sway the little Body one way or other for if it incline the Matter will be apt to grow to the inclining side which should be avoided 15. Let the neck be considerably cooler then the other part that thy Vapours may condense in it which else will burst the Glass violently so mayst thou give thy Fire more strong then otherwise and let thy nest be guarded from unnecessary heats and colds which therefore would have holes at the top of the Cover which may shut over every Glass and let out a part of the neck which would be very advantageous both for the fastning of the Glass and condensing of Vapours 16. This boiling will begin in the first three days and if you be a good Work-man in the first 24 hours and from its first ebullition your time is to be reckoned 17. When you see the Water thicken in its boiling there is less danger of the Fire 18. If your Fire go out your Stone dies 19. Every intermission of your Fire is a wasting both of its strength and virtue and besides the most tedious protraction of time it makes the Stone subject to many Sicknesses which would require a most subtle Philosopher to amend and it lays your Stone in danger of having a return of the Crows Pullets to their nest after they are fled which is an ominous sign 20. Your Gold is not totally lost before blackness perfect yet it may be so metamorphosed as to puzzle the best Mechanick to reduce it and then it is never so full of Spirit as it was before 21. Yet some of it will be lost in a short decoction and most of it in thirty days In a Fire then governed according to these Rules dry up thy moisture and that thou mayst dry up the moisture of thy Water thou must dissolve the Compages of thy Body so then thy Water dissolves thy Body and thy dissolved Body re-congeals it self by a further decoction and with it self congeals the Water which in dissolution was so united as to make one with it Four Natures into a fifth so shalt thou turn Which is a Nature most perfect and temperate THus shalt thou turn thy four qualities in which were repugnancy into a fifth which is temperate that is thou shalt in this driness of Calcination reconcile the Mercury with its qualities of cold and moisture to Sulphur with its qualities of heat and driness so shall thy Elements remain at the bottom and thy Exhalations shall cease and the moisture being daily terminated into driness by the ferment of the Body as Milk by Runnit is terminated into Cheese thou shalt have a middle product partaking of the complexion of either Parent But hard it is with thy bare foot to spurn Against a bar of Iron or Steel new acuate For many so do which be infatuate When they such high things take in hand Which they in no wise understand THus we have plainly and faithfully done our duty and by a Line as it were have dissevered the Truth from Falshood yet we know that in the World our Writings shall prove as a curious edged Knife to some they shall carve out Dainties and to others it shall serve only to cut their Fingers yet we are not to be blamed for we do seriously profess to any that shall attempt this Work that he attempts the highest piece of Philosophy that is in Nature and though we write in English yet our Matter will be as hard as Greek to some who will think they understand us well when they misconstrue our meaning most perversly
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
and Calcination into a red Elixir which is the Sabboth of Nature and Art at which being arrived there is no farther progress without a new Marriage either by Ferment or otherwise according to the rule of Nature and Art so that indeed all our work is three Rotations and every Rotation hath three Members Solution Sublimation and Calcination The first Solution is called Inceration and Reduction or Liquefaction the second properly Solution the third Inceration The first Sublimation is called Distillation Ascension and Descension the second Separation and Ablution the third Exaltation and Sublimation The First Calcination is called Calcination and Conjunction Triptative Putrefaction c. The second Congelation Albification and Fixation the Third Illumination c. only remember thou in thy first Calcination attainest compleat Putrefaction in the second the compleat white Elixir and in the third the compleat Red. This I premise to undeceive thee that thou mayst not think to have a Calcination first a Dissolution next a Separation thirdly a Conjunction fourthly a Putrefaction fifthly c. No verily when thou first puttest thy Matters into the Vessel in the first day of thy Operation thou givest a Fire in which thy Compound boileth swelleth and puffeth visibly and drops run down in veins off from the Convex of thy Glass for in this Mercury thy Gold will beyond the nature of any other Mercury flow in the Fire as if the whole was Mercury and boyl visibly which must never cease not a moment for it brings imminent damage In the first days of your boyling which is accompanied with a constant ascending and return of Fumes your Compound grows more and more liquid now and then a skin appearing in the form of a distinguishable though not very observable whiteness At length a yellowish colour will appear less at first and more afterwards distinguishable both in the boyling Compound below and in the Fumes above and when thou seest thy Glass as if it were all over gilded where the Fumes ascend with a blewness then know that thy Man and Wife do mix their Seeds then shall an obscure greenness pass and continue a season then shall thy Fumes diminish and at length be none at all and the Compound shall boyl and swell in the bottom of the Glass After that the more you boyl your Compound will be the more black coming at last to the temper of melted Pitch for colour and bubbling which shall rot with obscure colours untill it come to the period of Putrefaction which is a most exquisitely subtle black unctuous Powder which about the 84 th or 90 th day in a good decoction will be compleat Take heed now for I shall not make such another particular Systeme of the Work in all my Writings When the fulness of compleat Calcination is perfect then will the parts begin to liquefie together again and you then shall see Vapours begin to arise again first like to a Smoak which will after return in drops condensing on the Vessel sides which believe me is a gallant sight for in this Operation as blackness by little wears away such colours will appear which thou canst not imagine that thou wilt steal from Natures due to satisfie thine eyes in the beholding of it when thou shouldest sleep This Circulation with infinite variety of colours will last between 20 and 30 days and then thou shalt see thy Matter appear pretty white which then will grow whiter and whiter till it become like a glittering Sword in the Sun-beams trust me for I have seen this shining sparkling white which yet will be quick like a most glorious Heaven-born Mercury the subject of wonders Then shall these Fumes begin to cease and thou shalt see a Congelation like to the sparkling twinkling eyes of Fishes which moving uncessantly on the Fire will glitter incomparably and wonderfully and thickning more and more it will sprout like the tender Frost in a most amiable lustre and in 25 days shalt thou have it a most impalpable undiscernable Powder Now thou needest no farther instruction only this let me tell you that the continuing your Glass in the Fire and increasing it discreetly this white will relent again and change into a perfect green and will again circulate and become perfect Azure and at the length thicken and in the end become after a long Citrinity in a moment a sparkling red pure impalpable Powder Understand this well and you will not be amazed any longer with the distinction of our Operations which is but Solution which contains Separation or Sublimation and Volatization and Coagulation which contains Conjunction Calcination and Fixation and all is but a successive action and passion of Gold the Body and his qualities and Mercury the Soul and its qualities between which intercedes a Spirit of Life which carries them up and down like a Wheel which turns till it returns thither whence it proceeded and then begins again and turns so long till it finds its rest which is in the Fiery Cathedra the red of the reddest the great Elixir commanding all Metals and reducing them to the highest period of Nature which is Gold it self having attained a plusquam perfection through the marvellous co-operation of Art and Nature Thus Gold is thy Base or Foundation the Centre to which all thy Operations return and in which they rest for they are but Circulations in their own kind and these Circulations are uncessantly carried along through the never-ceasing action of the Fire which a little intermission would retard notably an extinction of the heat would extinguish irrecoverably If any then should ask us what our natural Operation of the Stone is we would answer a making of active Natures passive and passive active by continual decoction We boyl continually and when the Spirit is active there is a constant ascension and descension and the Body is dissolved and made to fly like a Spirit and when the Body is active the Fumes by little and little cease and the Compound remains below boiling without fuming thickning and then at length calcining and this is without hands repeated three times the Fire only being kept continually and then a Sabboth of rest and perfection is attained in the mean time divers colours come and go which the dying Body and vegetative Soul do work and cause Trust me Friend and Brother thou never hadst such a manuduct as this in thy life the Reasons of my plainness my little Latine Treatise doth clearly shew The Battle 's fought the Conquest won The Lyon dead reviv'd The Eagle's dead which did him slay And both of sense depriv'd The Showrs cease the Dews which fell For six weeks do not rise The ugly Toad that did so swell With swelling bursts and dies The Argent Field with Or is stain'd With Violet intermix'd The sable Black is not disdain'd Which shews the Spirits fix'd The Compound into Atoms turn'd The Seeds together blended The flying Soul to th' Earth return'd The soaring Bird descended The
King and Queen contumulate And joyn'd as one together That which before was two by Fate Is ty'd which none can sever The King begets the Queen with Child Conjunction doth allay Their fury who before were wild Conception both doth slay The King is Brother to his Wife And she to him is Mother One Father is to both whose life Depends upon each other The one when dead the other dyes And both are laid in Grave The Coffin's one in which both lyes Each doth the other save Yet each the other doth destroy And yet both are amended One without t' other hath no joy Both are of one descended Twice fourty days do come and go To which twice five are added These do produce a perfect Crow Whose blackness chears hearts sadded Twice fifteen more produce a Dove Whose wings are bright and tender Twice ten more make the Soul above To need no Fire defender For Soul and Body so combine The Spirit interceding Tincture to give of Silver fine The Soul the Body in leading Also such fixity to add Against the Flames prevailing Which may the Chymist make full glad The Sophister still failing Who seeks in fancies for to find Our Art so much concealed Not duly weighing in his mind That 't is a Fountain sealed Which one thing only can unlock This one thing learn to know Lest you the same event should mock That thing these Lines do shew AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Second Gate Which is DISSOLUTION The Second Gate Opened Which is DISSOLUTION Of Dissolution now will I speak a word or two Which sheweth out what erst was hid from fight And maketh intenuate things that were thick also By virtue of our first Menstrue clear and bright In which our Bodies eclipsed been of light And of their hard and dry compaction subtilate Into their own first Matter kindly retrogradate HAving run through the Chapter of Calcination I now come to handle Dissolution which as I said before is the first beginning of the Spirits activity and it is the first half of the Wheel which turns up the Spirit and down the Body the second hath a contrary operation for it makes the Body active and Spirit passive so then Calcination hides the profundity of the Body which Solution discovereth It is then nothing else but a boiling of hard and dry Bodies in our Mercury in a convenient Fire so long till they be dissolved and made thin then the same Fire makes them fly and flying they condense and return in drops on the Body and moisten it This is Solution and Sublimation together for the Water circulating upon the Body doth soften it and by often returning doth at length bring it to its own nature of moisture In this Resolution according to Artephius the Sun loseth its colour and is darkned and the Moon doth not give her light for all things are turned into their confused Chaos or first Matter in which the Elements with their qualities are hurried together One in Gender they be and in Number two Whose Father is the Sun and the Moon the Mother The mover is Mercury These and no more be Our Magnesia our Adrop and none other Things here be but only Sister and Brother That is to mean Agent and Patient Sulphur and Mercury co-essential to our intent THe cause of this is the Homogeneity of the Matter wherein they agree in essence together with the difference which is between them in Sex they being in the Glass as Male and Female and in ripeness of years one being more mature and by consequent more active to wit the Sun who therefore is the Father the other more crude in comparison of the Sun and so more passive viz. the Moon which therefore is the Mother of our Stone This Mother is our Mercury which for its eminent difference from any other Mercury is called the Moon with its internal true Sulphur which is hidden under its Mercurial form doth first move for at first our Body which is Gold is dead and liveth not till it be quickned by our Mercury then it lives it behoveth thee then to put in thy Body and thy Water and let them stand together and add nothing to them This Composition duly made we call our Magnesia and our Adrop and nothing entreth neither Powder nor Liquor save only these two species which species are the perfect Body and Argent vive These two sprung out of one Root for as I told you the Soul of thy animated Mercury is perfect true Gold yet volatile which by Art may be made to appear in a fixed form so then we joyn Consanguinity with Consanguinity Brother with Sister and make them become together Man and Wife These two by continual Fire do act and re-act the Woman first and then the Man several which then are joyned and make one Hermaphrodite acting one half of each Circulation as a Woman or Spirit and the other half as a Man or Body For each of the two principles have a Sulphur and a Mercuriality the Gold or Body hath its Sulphur external and apparent the Mercury the Spirit hath it internally hidden yet both these are co-essential each to other and in that respect they are the only subjects in the World for our Art Between these two in quality contrarious Ingendred is a mean most marvellous Which is our Mercury and Menstrue unctuous Our secret Sulphur working invisibly More fierce then Fire burning the Body Dissolving Metals into Water Mineral Which Night for darkness in the North we do call FOr with their Homogeneity they have withall such a Contrariety in opposite qualities that they do no sooner feel the Fire but they are stirred up to Work and boiling and circulating in a continual Ebullition or Vapour they do mingle their homogeneal qualities together by reason of which there is a strange medium of an unnatural Fire and a putrefying Bath ingendred then the Sulphur or Fire of the Gold which is the Fire of Nature and the Sulphur of the Water do embrace one another and these two make an unnatural Fire in which the Humidity appears and the Sulphur being hidden to the eye appears in its effects only to sight and that is it burns destroys and conquers the Bodies which common Fire never could do making them to be no Bodies but a Fume of Mineral Vapour and in this Operation the Elements are confused and make our Chaos which is void and dark for here the Lights of the World are eclipsed the Sun is darkned and the Moon sheweth not its light which watrishness of the Compositions for its abundance of moisture and privation of light we call Winter and Night and the North Latitude of our Stone But yet I trow thou understandst not utterly The very secret of Philosophers Dissolution Therefore understand me I counsel thee wittily For the truth I will tell thee without delusion Our Solution is caused of our Congelation For Dissolution on the one side corporal Causeth Congelation on the other
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
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
The cause of his life his Sister did slay This made him full sad And grief made him mad Thus soon his strength fell to decay His House and Chamber were so charg'd with heat It made him to faint And fainting fell into a grievous sweat His sweat did so taint The Room With foul persume Which did e'en almost suffocate So feeble he grew He could not eschew But dung'd and piss'd there where he sate At length with sorrows many he expires Full glad of the change That death at last should answer his desires But what is most strange When dead That it might be said How dearly he his Sister did love Their Corps did unite That they in despight Of Fire would not asunder move And thus together they contumulate A rotting did lye Passing through dismal Purgatories Gate Wherein they did fry So long Vntil among The Saints for purity they might pass Their sins were no more To be found on score They then were clear as Crystal Glass A Spirit then of life from Heaven came In their Bodies dead Which now united of renowned fame To Heaven were led Where they Abode for aye Enjoying pleasures for evermore To death not subject Were now the object Of wonder for th' had Riches store AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Fourth Gate Which is CONJUNCTION The Fourth Gate Opened Which is CONJUNCTION After the Chapter of Natural Separation By which the Elements of our Stone dissevered be The Chapter here followeth of secret Conjunction Which Natures repugnant joyneth to perfect unity And so them knitteth that none from others may flee When they by the Fire shall be examinate They be together so surely conjungate HAving run through the Chapter of Separation with a plain stile we shall now come to the life of all which is Conjunction for we seek not a thing which may be capable of Separation but which may abide in all tryals the parts being impossible to be separated one from another for so our Tincture ought to be or else it will be wholly unprofitable for our purpose For Separation is but the middle motion by which we pass from the unary simplicity of Gold to the millenary plusquam perfection of our Stone before which can be attained there must be a loosing of the Compages of the Body that so the Spiritual Fire or Tincture may be set loose which being loosed will certainly multiply it self with that by which it was dissolved with which it is necessary that it should Radically be mixed and united so as that both the dissolvent and the dissolved may make one together This then is the benefit of our Water that it doth not only reduce open and mollifie our Body and cause it to send out its Seed but it is actually recongealed with the fermental virtue of this seminal influence of Gold that it becomes together with the Body one new Body perpetually united So that although our Water be volatile when it is first taken yet notwithstanding after it hath first made the Body no Body but a Spirit in which spiritualizing the Virtue or Tincture is augmented after that the Body by Congelation makes this no Spirit but a Body by which the fixity is advanced mightily so that both will endure all Fire For it is not only an apparent union that is made but real so real that the Spirit and the Body pass one into another penetrating each others dimensions the Spirit being one with the Body and the Body being the Spirit the Form swallowing up the Matter in unity so that all becomes really Tincture And therefore Philosophers give this definition Saying this Conjunction is nothing else But of dissevered qualities a Copulation Or of principles a Coequation as others tells But some men with Mercury that Apothecaries sells Meddleth Bodies that cannot divide Their Matter and therefore they slip aside OF this Operation Philosophers make a great Mystery and speak of it very hiddenly in respect to the terminus of it which they call the hour of the Stones Nativity in which they say many marvels will appear for all the colours that can be invented in the World will be then apparent Some say their Conjunction is our reconciliation of Contraries a making friendship between Enemies because in that time the volatile is still ascending and descending upon the fixt this is by them ascribed to Contrariety Others measuring all sublunary things by the rules of Symmetry and Ametry do ascribe this Operation which they for similitude sake compare to a Duel to the over-prevailing of one principles qualities above the qualities of the other and therefore they define Auriety to be the Anaticalness of the four Elements in mixture each in his quality acting proportionable to the resistance of its contrary vice versa But this is but an Entanglement in which the Chymists stumble upon School Academical Principles I had rather embrace their Secret as for Operation but for Philosophy jump with that noble Bruxellian whose promised Treatises when the World shall enjoy I suppose they will be the profoundest piece of Philosophy that ever was revealed to the World which I admire not so much for his Experiments of none of which I am ignorant nor Paracelsus to boot many yea most of which are far harder though sooner wrought than the Elixir and the Alchahest is a hundred times more difficult but what I most honour in that noble Naturalist is that he did search out the Occulta Naturae more accurately then ever any did in the World So that setting aside the skill of this Mastery of which I cannot find any footsteps in what of his is extant I am confident he was without flattery Natures Privy-Counsellor and for Philosophical verity might have commanded this Secret but God doth not reveal all to all men yet who knows what he may live to be Master of in this point too This I speak not to flatter him who besides what is evident to the whole World in his Writings have no other character of him and to him I am like to remain a perpetual Stranger yet could as heartily desire his acquaintance as any mans I know in the World and if the Fates prevent not mine intentions by mine or his death I shall endeavour familiarity with him But this by the way To return whence I digressed our final secret is first to unite the Spirit and Soul of our dissolving Water that by the mediation of the Soul the Spirit and Body may be conjoyned and then after several Sublimations and Precipitations made for that end that the Body may be spiritualized and the Spirit corporalized so fix together the Soul Body and Spirit the flying and the fixt that all the Elements to use Philosophers terms may acquiesce and rest in this Nest of Earth in which all the virtue of the superiours and inferiours is contained both in power and act From what hath been said may appear the strong passive delusion that hath taken many men of our Age and formerly
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
according to Flammel seeks to get the Domination for many months that is to say for three months or thereabouts which according to our Author is ninety days and nights to whom many other Authors agree This time may be longer or shorter according to the better or worse preparation of the Matter and the Regimen of the Fire But when thou hast set thy Glass once in the first place be sure that thou give a due yet temperate heat govern it so as that between the Waters above and the Flouds beneath the Earth may liquefie then continue your decoction and the Vessel shall be beclouded and thy Compound shall with constant Circulation become black This colour shall be a sign unto you that you have not run your course in vain this is the first Gate into which and through which you must enter now know for certain that thy Seeds begin to rot and engender In this Putrefaction there is life for this Operation is nothing else but an extracting of Natures from their profundity or root this is that which will make thy fixt Body to become a volatile Spirit for Putrefaction doth loose the bands of all the Elements Which after many colours thou mayst bring To perfect whiteness by patience easily And so the Seed in his nature shall multiply SO soon then as thou shalt have blackness compleat know for certain that in this blackness whiteness is really hidden so really as a living Plant in its Seed But before thou attain to this whiteness thou mayst have patience and pass through many middle changable colours which will be no small chearing to the Work-man who must wait with a great deal of Longanimity until the Earth and Heaven be united Then shall thy Elements perfectly accord and one colour shall cover thy new-married Soul and Body and that will be like to the most pure Lilly or sublimed Salt sparkling like to a new-slipped Sword in the Sun beams In this whiteness is the Multiplicative virtue exalted and made apparent in its first degree by this white Soul thou mayst turn either Mercury or Saturn or Jupiter or Venus or Mars into most pure refined Silver in a short time and that not Sophistically to apparency but in reality inwardly and outwardly to abide all Essays Make each the other to halâ—e and kiss And like as Children play them up and down And when their Shirts are filled with Piss Then let the Woman to wash be bown Which oft for faintness will fall in a swoâ—â— And die at last with her Children all And go to Purgatory to wash their filth Original BUt in thy first Operation as is said before first look for blackness which will appear in the first Regimen by continual decoction which blackness shall be an Indicium to you that your two Natures do begin now to imbrace and kiss one another For so soon as they feel the Fire they flow together within the Vessel and boyl by continuance of decoction visibly and the tender Nature not enduring the heat flyeth aloft and being inclosed so that it cannot get out it congeals in drops in the head of the Vessel and about the sides and again returns to its Body which may well be called Childrens play running round as it were in a Circular motion This play continues so long till the Water begins to leave its thicker parts with the thicker parts of the Body which in the bottom of the Vessel is called Vrina puerorum and the thinner parts of the Water mixed with the thinner parts of the Body which is dissolved in it flies still and circulates until it have made a more full dissolution of the Body which here by the odour of its Sulphur doth penetrate the Spirit and Soul and makes them faint at last and remain as it were breathless in the bottom of the Glass Then shall the Body be destroyed and both the Water and it rot into small Atoms which will lie without motion growing every day more and more black until at length Cimmerian darkness cover the whole Sky This is called the North Latitude of our Stone and it is Winter cold and dirty here are the Elements brought to rest for a time until a Generation be made in the bottom of the Glass when through the will and power of God a clean thing shall be brought out of this uncleanness and black venenosity When they be there by little little increase Their pains with heat aye more and more The Fire from them let never cease And see that thy Furnace be surely apt therefore Which wise men call an Athanor Concerning heat required most temperately By which thy Matter doth kindly putrefie NOw thy Bath will begin to be a little more heated and stirred up to wash this young King which though noble is yet conceived in a Stable for at this time thou hast the Sulphur of thy dissolved Body let loose which mixing with the Sulphur of the Water doth acuate it exceedingly the one being a natural the other a Fire against Nature both together make an unnatural Fire burning like to the Fire of Hell comparable to nothing but the Alcahest Nor must thou think that this increase of Fire consists in the blowing of the Coal no verily it is a more subtle internal Fire that we have and yet that also must be kept constant and in due order For this cause see that thy Furnace be trusty else thou mayst and wilt fail for though the Fire of Coals do not effect any thing yet it excites and the Water though it be of a wonderfull nature yet it acts no farther then it is stirred up and intermission in this Work when it is once begun will in the end prove fatal extinction Therefore the Wise men have named the Furnace in which they work their Secrets an Athanor that is Immortal shewing that from the beginning to the end the Fire must not go out for the extinction of it destroys the Work and as death includes all sicknesses which are steps to it so an Immortal Furnace or Athanor must not only preserve the Fire from going out but also from exorbitancy either on one hand or other for whatever swerves from the temperate mean hinders the kind operation of the Matter which is Putrefaction by which means the Work is notably retarded and weakned and by continuance of any extremity it will be destroyed but with its due heat it doth putrefie kindly Of this principle speaketh sapient Guido And saith by rotting dyeth the Compound corporal And then after Morien and others moe Vp riseth again regenerate simple and spiritual And were not heat and moisture continual Sperm in the Womb might have none abiding And so there should no fruit thereof up spring THis according to the intention of all Philosophers Guido Turba Arnaldus and others but especially noble Trevisan whom I chiefly honour so Flammel Artephius Morien and all Philosophers testifie thus much namely that the heat must be so adequated to the
pass from darkness of Purgatory to light Of Paradise in whiteness Elixir of great might THis is a noble step from Hell to Heaven from the bottom of the Grave to the top of Power and Glory from obscurity in blackness to resplendent whiteness from the height of venenosity to the height of Medicine Oh Nature how dost thou alter things into things casting down the high and mighty and again exalting them being base and lowly Oh Death how art thou vanquished when thy Prisoners are taken from thee and carried to a state and place of Immortality This is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes And that thou mayst the rather to Putrefaction Win this example thou take c. The heart of an Oak which hath of Water continual infusion For though it in Water lay an hundred years and more Yet shouldest thou find it sound as ever it was before O Happy Gate of blackness which art the passage to this so glorious a change study therefore whoever applyest thy self to this Art only to know this Secret for know this and know all and contrarywise be ignorant of this and be ignorant of all Therefore if that possible thou mayst attain the depth of this Mystery I shall endeavour to unfold it to thy capacity by similitudes and examples Thou knowest that if a solid piece of Wood lie in water perpetually it will tire the patience of the most patient expecter to see it rot for it will abide many Generations and in the end be as sound as when it was first laid in Yea some contend that in our days Pine-Trees are dug up in their intire proportion which have been buried ever since the Floud being found in such places in which no Histories ever mentioned that such Trees grew and so deep under ground as it is almost incredible which certainly have layn at least many hundred years and yet the Wood as sound as any other Tree of that sort which hath not been cut down above a year or two such is the force of constant Hume-faction to prevent the ordinary corruption of Timber But and thou keep it sometimes wet and sometimes dry As thou mayst see in Timber And so even likewise c. Sometimes our Tree must with the Sun be brent BUt contrarywise Timber which is kept wet sometimes and dry sometimes as usually the foundations of Timber Houses are if not secured by the Masons Art it would tire the Householders patience to see how soon such Timber will rot and molder away and become fit for nothing which is a thing so well known that the experience of every Rustick almost can teach it him So resolve our Stone must be used if thou intend to have it putrefie kindly our Wheel for Putrefaction must go round in a constant Elevation or Extraction of the Water or Humidity from the Body by which Operation our Man the Sun is helped in his acting and this Water must as constantly return to the Earth to moisten it by which the Woman the Moon is helped in her acting And then with Water we must it keel That so to rotting we may bring it wee l BEtween these two various Operations which one and the same Fire produceth our Body is both heated and cooled his sweat is drawn forth and returned upon him again by the which means it is triturated ground softned and made weak even unto death and dying it rots and putrefies changing colours from one into another until at the length it becomes black as Ink or Pitch which is our Toad our Crow our Tomb filled with rottenness our Golgotha or place of dead bones our Terra foliata or Earth of Leaves For now in wet c. To be shall cause it soon to putrefie And so shall thou bring to rotting thy Gold Intreat thy Bodies c. And in thy putrefying with heat be not too swift Lest in the Ashes thou seek after thy thrift OUr Operation then saith Morien is nothing else but extracting Water from the Earth and returning it again upon the Earth so long and so often till the Earth putrefie for by elevation of the moisture the Body is heated and dried and by returning it again it is cooled and moistned by the continuation of which successive Operations it is brought to corrupt and rot to lose its form and for a season to remain as dead This is the true intention and manner of our working and there is no other manner of working that can be invented that can give thee the effect of this our Operation for this is the true way and means by which thy Body of Gold will be destroyed and no other way profitable for our Art Proceed therefore as I have directed thee and swerve not either to the right hand or to the left Take this Body which I have shewed thee and joyn it with the Spirit which is proper to it which the Wise men have called their Venus or Goddess of Love and circulate these two Natures one upon the other until the one have conceived by the other But beware you urge not the Spirit too much but remember that he is a volatile substance and if he be over-provoked he will certainly break the Vessel and fly and leave thee the ruines of thy Glass for a recompence of thy over-speedy rashness which trust me will make thee fetch a deep Philosophical sigh and say when it is too late I would I had been content to wait Natures time Let the Fire then be such in which thy Spirit may be so stirred up as to return to its Body in the Glass and not so irritated as to break the Vessel and return to the Ashes or Sand of the Nest or stick about the sides of the Cover of your Nest or else fly about in the Room wherein the Artist is and lodge in his Head and so make it far more unconstant then it was before by adding to his rash giddiness a Paralytical shaking Therefore the Water out of the Earth thou draw And make the Soul therewith for to ascend Then down again into the Earth it throw That they oft-times so ascend and descend PRoceed therefore not as a Fool but as a Wise man make the Water of thy Compound to arise and circulate so long and often until the Soul that is to say the most subtle virtue of the Body arise with it circulating with the Spirit in manner of a fiery form by which both the Spirit and Body are enforced to change their colour and complexion for it is this Soul of the dissolved Bodies which is the subject of Wonders it is the life and therefore quickens the dead it is the Vegetative Soul and therefore it makes the dead and sealed Bodies which in their own Nature are barren to fructifie exceedingly Therefore if this return unto the Earth from which it first took its flight it will make it for to fructifie and to increase in Tincture and in the Earth it self will multiply
which shall over-go The spotted Panther the Lyon green the Crow's Bill blew as Lead These shall appear before the perfect White and many other moe Colours And after the perfect white gray and false Citrine also And after these then shall appear the bloody red invariable Then hast thou a Medicine of the third order of his own kind multiplicable IX Thou must divide thy white Elixir into parts Two Before thou Rubifie and into Glasses Two let them be done If thou wilt have the Elixirs for Sun and Moon so do With Mercury then them multiply unto great quantity soon And if thou hadst not at the beginning enough to fill a Spoon Yet thou mayst them so multiply both the White and the Red That if thou liv'st a Thousand Years they will stand thee in stead X. Have thou recourse unto thy Wheel therefore I counsel thee And study him well to know in each Chapter truly Meddle with no Fantastical Multiplyers but let them be Which will thee flatter and falsly say they are cunning in Philosophy Do as I bid thee then dissolve those foresaid Bases wittily And turn them into perfect Oyls with our true Water ardent By Circulation that must be done according to our intent XI These Oyls will six crude Mercury and convert Bodies all Into perfect Sol and Lune when thou shalt make Projection That Oyly Substance pure fixt Reymond Lully did call His Basilisk of which he never made so plain detection Pray for me to God that I may be one of his Election And that he will for one of his at Dooms-day me ken And grant me in his Bliss to Reign with him for ever Amen A Breviary of Alchemy OR A COMMENTARY UPON Sir GEORGE RIPLEY'S RECAPITULATION BEING A Paraphrastical Epitome of his XII Gates Stanza I. Position I. That the Art is most certainly true WHich wittily conceiv'd thou mayest not Work in vain Whence observe the Truth and Certainty of the Art so Father Hermes It is true saith he without falshood certain and most true That which is above is like that which is beneath and that which is beneath is like that which is above to bring about the Miracles of one thing So Trevisan Flammel Dionys Zachary and others affirm upon their own Experience And so this our Author in his Epistle to King Edward his Conclusion of the Admonition concerning erroneous Experiments and other places of these his Twelve Gates that I need not enlarge on this Subject Stanza II. Position II. Our Work is made of Three Principles WHere the Red Man and the White Woman are made one c. Thence it is evident that our Operations are made of Three Principles yet of one Essence the Red Man the White Wife and the Spirit of Life By the latter the two former are Espoused or made One. This is that which Trevisan calls his One Root and Two Mercurial Substances crude at their taking and extracted out of their Minera's This our Author else-where calls his Trinity and Vnity the Trinity respecting the Substances as they are severall the Vnity respecting their Essence which is intirely Homogenial Therefore it is added that they live in love and rest without repugnancy which could not be were they not Essentially and Radically the same For likeness of Nature is the Cause of Love and Oneness of Essence the true ground of Union among different Substances can only be expected Confusion if not Destruction Position III. Three Substances make only Two Natures Earth and Water EArth and Water equally proportion'd that is best Here it is evident that these Three Substances make up but Two Natures of Earth and Water The Man and Wife are both Bodies or Earths the one fixed and ripe the other Volatile and unripe and by Mixture make a brittle black Hermaphroditical Body or Earth called the Philosophers Lead as Ripley in his Preface expresseth it The White Woman or Famale is otherwise called the Moon by all Philosophers and by this Author in his Doctrine of Proportions One of the Sun and Two of the Moon till altogether like Pap be done Position IV. From equal Pondus of Earth and Water Three of Water to One of the Earth is good but equal is best THen make the Mercury Four to the Sun Two to the Moon c. as it should be in Figure of the Trinity And so we come to take notice of the Doctrine of Proportion between the Earth and Water equal that is best the same saith our Author in his Chapter of Calcination This is the surest and best proportion speaking of equal Pondus of Earth and Water and gives the Reason because Solution will be sooner made viz. The more thy Earth the less thy Water be The sooner and better Solution shalt thou see And here he affirms the same of Calcination which goes before Solution Yet Three of the Water to One of the Earth will do well lest the Tincture should not have room to be sufficiently dilated in the Water and the Body opened by it and this is the Pondus of Roger Bacon which requires a longer time before the quick be kil'd and by consequence the reviving of the dead must be longer in doing For Calcination is nothing else but a killing the moist with the dry till which be done there is no reviving of the dry by the moist but they have one and the same Operation and Period of time for one dies not but the other revives nor doth the Dragon die but with its Sister Position V. The White Wife in the first Conjunction is to be Three to One of the Red Man THree of the Wife and one of the Man thou take c. From the Pondus between the Earth and Water come we to view the Proportion between the Man and his Wife Here the Pondus is laid down Three to One and so there are Four parts of Earth to Four of Water or more until Twelve that is Three of Water to One of the Earth This also is clear from the Chapter of Conjunction where the Woman is allow'd 15 Veins to 5 of the Man as to the Act of their Foecundity which is interpreted of the first Conjunction by himself that the Man must have but 3 of Water and his Wife 9 which is 12 of Water to 4 of the Earth by which it is evident that the Woman is to exceed her Husband in a three-fold Proportion Or Two to One after Reymund Or Four to One according to Alanus but Three to One is best However in Reymund's Doctrine of Proportions cited by our Author in his Gate of Calcination One of the Sun is joyn'd with Two of the Moon which make Three of the Body and to these are added Four of Mercury which is One more of the Spiritual than of the Corporal part and this the Author compares to Trinity and Vnity both are good Yea and Alanus prescribes Four parts to One which may be done but Three to One is best and equal Pondus
of Spirit and Life for compleating of the Marriage between this Royal Pair the Sun the Husband and the Moon the Wife Of this speaks this Author in his Gate of Solution One in Gender they be but in Number not so The Father is the Sun and the Moon the Mother the Mover is Mercury This Compound according to its various Considerations hath many Relations and as many Denominations Sun and Moon Man and Wife Body Soul and Spirit Earth and Water Sister and Brother Mother and Son with many others but its Proper Name is Magnesia Quest What is the Red Man what his White Wife What the Spirit of Life It may be here questioned what this Red Man is what his White Wife and what the Spirit of Life for that is the only knot in understanding the Writings of Philosophers whose various Expressions and seeming Contradictions herein do obscure the Art wonderfully Yet however they seem to differ in their Writings they mean all one thing if well or rightly understood Answer 1 st What the Red Man is The Red Man betokens the perfect Body of the Sun or his Shadow the Moon For Lune the Body which is one of the Seven is a Male and a perfect Body and fixed only wants a little Digestion and therefore the Red is hid under its visible White as White is hid under the visible Red of Sol Therefore our Author in his Work of Albification saith that the Sun appeareth White and Bright And Trevisan saith our King who is cloathed in Garments of pure Gold after he is once in the Bath appears no more till after one hundred and thirty days and then he appears White and wonderfully bright and shining And an old Philosopher saith Honour our King at his return from the East in Glory and admirable bright whiteness Therefore saith Artefius Our Water is of kin to the perfect Bodies to the Sun and to the Moon but more to the Sun then to the Moon Note this well And in all his Books he joyns the Sun and Moon the perfect Bodies Gold and Silver for the work So doth Ripley and so all Philosophers by which it is evident that either of the perfect Metals or Luminaries with oâ—r Aqua Vitae will compleat the work as Arnold expressly saith in his Questions Answers to Boniface and Jodocus Greverus in his Treatise confirms the same in these words If so be saith he thou be so poor that thou canst not take Gold then take so much Silver yet Gold is the better as being nearer of kin to our Water and Mercury Answer 2. What is the White Wife Secondly The White Wife otherwise called the Moon is a Female it is a Coagulated Mercury but not fixt A spiritual Body fluxible in nature of a Body yet Volatile in nature of a Spirit It is called therefore Mercury of the Philosophers Our Green Lyon Our immature or unripe Gold It is Pontanus's Fire Artephius's middle substance clear like pure Silver which ought to receive the Tinctures of the Sun and Moon his sharp Vineger his Antimonial-Saturnine-Mercurial Argent Vive without which â—aton cannot be whitened of which an old Philosopher saith whiten the red Laton by a white tepid and suffocated Water of which testimony Trâ—visanus affirms that nothing could be said better or clearer This is that which is intimated in the Vision of Arislaus who found a People that were Married yet had no Children because they married two Males together Such are they who mix Sol and Lune both Corporal and fixt together whom the Spirit will never revive because there is not conjugal Love Joyn therefore Gabritius to his beloved Sister Beya which is a tender Damsel and straightway Gabritius will die that is will lose what he was and from that place where he appeared to have lost what he was he shall appear what he was not before Answ 3. What is the Spirit of Life Thirdly The Spirit of Life is Mercury The Mover saith this Author is Mercury with which the Stone is to be multiplyed when it is made And it must be true Mineral Mercury without any forreign mixture as Arnold resolves expressly in his Answer to Boniface And so Ripley saith some can multiply Mercury with Saturn and other substances which we defie Distil it therefore till it be clean c. It moreover must have all the proportions of Mercury its ponderosity otherwise it could not be Metalline its Humidity otherwise the Feminine Sperm would be deficient and its siccity not to wet the hand which it can no sooner lose by Corrosives or otherwise but it straight-way loseth its first Mineral Proportion and so is no longer an Ingredient of our true Tincture Position VI. As the West Latitude is the entrance so in the North is the first alteration PRoceed then forth to the North by obscuration c. Loosing them and altering them c. The Materials being found and mixt according to the Proportions taught before is called the West Latitude because in it the Sun sets and afterwards appears no more in his Red Robes till he first be cloathed with a White glittering Robe and be Crowned with a very bright Oriental Diadem Now the progress into the North is a discovery of the Profundity of the Stone and is compared to the Winter which is in the North chiefly long tedious cold and slabbery so will it be in this Work the Signs are Capricorn Pisces and Aquarius In this there is a retrogradation of Sol into its first matter in which alteration the old Form dies the Matter rots and putrifies and is after renewed in the East This Operation saith Flammel is not perfected in less then Five Months and the Colours of the Compound are dark obscure waterish and at length black like Pitch in which blackness the Body is rotted into Atoms which intire blackness and height of corruption lasts but 2 or 3 days and therefore saith Ripley in his Epistle the third day he shall arise the same saith Dastin in his Rosary where he allows four days for Putrefaction The same saith Efferarius the Monk in his intire Treatise published with Dastin However the whole time of blackness in coming continuing and going away is 150 days although the Sun begins to appear in 130 days if you work aright This I have added for the sake of many who expect black of the blackest in 40 or 50 dayes mistaking Flammel herein who saith the colour must be black of the blackest and like to the colour of the Dragons in 40 days which Dragons were blackish blewish and yellowish which colours shew that the Matter begins to rot into Atoms which rottenness is not perfected in less than 150 days so as to let the Sun appear with its Rays First in a small Circle of Heir of a whitish Citrine which increaseth and changeth hue day by day till whiteness be fully compleated Position VII The East denoting Whiteness is the beginning of the Stones Altitude THence by Colours
green Lyon for with our first Menstrue we Calcine only perfect bodies but none which are unclean except one which is usually call'd by Philosophers the Lyon-Green into this the clearness of the Sun or of the Moon secretly descends that is by this the Mercuriality or profundity of the Sun and Moon are manifested by exuberation but is hidden from sight a long time till after putrefaction it exuberates and appears openly bleeding and changing colours and at first being cloathed in a glorious Green of which saith the Rosary O happy Greenness without which nothing can spring This exuberate Mercury is our hidden Stone that is Potentially for when that appears repugnant natures are tyed to Unity that is our Green-Lyon or Minera or vegetable humidity or Mercuriality natural which costeth right naught or our first Menstrue and the noblest Creature of Earthly composition which is either the Sun or Moon but especially the Sun In each of which the Mercuriality is invisible and appears not to sight but by effect that is in the quality of clearness with Whiteness in one and with redness in the other these three being United the Mercury of the Sun exuberates and appears at first green then is the Eclipse near and the Northern progress the process after all this is short this one thing putrifies then wash him in his own broth till he become White then Ferment him wisely there is the beginning middle and end Glory be to God FINIS These Books are Printed lately for William Cooper at the Pellican in Little-Britain London THe Philosophical Epitaph in Hieroglyphical Figures 8 o A Brief of the Golden Calf the Miracle of Nature 8 o Glauber's Golden Ass to get Gold from Stones Sand c. 8 o Jehior the Three Principles or Original of all things 8 o A Catalogue of Chymical Books in 3 parts 8 o Simpson's Philosophical Discourse of Fermentation 8 o Aeyrenaeus Philalethes's Secrets Reveal'd Or the Shut Pallance open'd 8 o His Exposition upon Sir G. Ripley's Epistle to K. Ed. IV. 8 o Upon Sir G. Ripley's Recapitulation 8 o These are Printing Aeyr Philalethes his Exposition upon Sir G. Ripley's Vision 8 o Upon Sir G. Ripley ' s Preface 8 o Upon Sir G. Ripley's first 6 Gates 8 o FINIS AN EXPOSITION UPON Sir GEORGE RIPLEY's VISION Written by Aeyrenaeus Philalethes ANGLUS COSMOPOLITA LONDON Printed for William Cooper at the Pellican in Little Britain MDCLXXVII THE VISION OF S r GEORGE RIPLEY Canon of Bridlington Unfolded WHen busie at my Book I was upon a certain Night This Vision here exprest appear'd unto my dimmed sight A Toad full Ruddy I saw did drink the juice of Grapes so fast Till over-charged with the broth his Bowels all to brast And after that from poyson'd Bulk he cast his Venom fell For Grief and Pain whereof his Members all began to swell With drops of Poysoned sweat approaching thus his secret Den His Cave with blasts of fumous Air he all bewhited then And â—rom the which in space a Golden Humour did ensue Whose falling drops from high did stain the soyl with ruddy hue And when his Corps the force of vital breath began to lack This dying Toad became forthwith like Coal for colour Black Thus drowned in his proper veins of poysoned flood For term of Eighty days and Four he rotting stood By Tryal then this Venom to expel I did desire For which I did commit his Carkass 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 Then of the Venom handled thus a Medicine I did make Which Venom kills and saveth such as Venom chance to take Glory be to him the granter of such secret ways Dominion and Honour both with Worâ—ship and with Praise Amen THE VISION OF S r GEORGE RIPLEY Canon of Bridlington Unfolded THis Vision is a Parable rather or Enigm which the Ancient Wise Philosophers have been wont to use often in setting out their secrets this Liberty is granted to all men for to make use of Enigmatical expressions to decipher that which is indeed mysterious The Ancient Egyptians taught much by Hieroglyphicks which way many Fathers of this Science have followed but most especially they have made use of Mystical or Cabalistical descriptions such is this But to the thing in hand A Toad full ruddy I saw HEre we have a Toad described and in it the whole secret of Philosophers The Toad is Gold so called because it is an Earthly Body but most especially for the black stinking venenosity which this operation comes to in the first days of its preparation before the whiteness appear during the Rule of Saturn therefore it is called the ruddy Toad To this Authors assent with one accord when they say our stone is nothing else but Gold digested unto the highest degree to which Nature and Art can bring it and again the first work saith another Philosopher is to sublime Mercury and then into clean Mercury to put clean bodies many witnesses I could bring yea the whole current of writers run this way And what if some subtle Philosophers seem to deny this on purpose to deceive the unwary We shall not make it our work to reconcile them though we might for many of them wrote very enviously on purpose to ensnare all of them wrote mysteriously as much as they could to darken the truth and at the best none of them were but men and described things according to their apprehensions in Philosophy none of them wrote in every thing the naked truth for then the Art would become so easie that it would be contemned But what needs words we know the Truth and we know by a secret Character true Writers from Sophisters and we need no Arguments being eye-witnesses our selves and know that there is but one truth nor but one path even the beaten path in which all who ever have attained this Art have troden nor can we be deceived our selves nor would we deceive others Did drink the juice of Grapes THis Toad is said to drink the juice of Grapes according to the Philosopher the body saith he is not nobler than Gold nor yet the water more pretious than wine This water they call sometimes Aqua Ardens sometimes Acetum Acerrimum but most commonly they call it their Mercury this denomination I shall not insist upon but shall assure yon that it only deciphers Mercury even that Mercury of which I writ in my little Latine Treatise called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Introitus apertus ad occlusum Regis palatium in that I discovered the whole Truth fully and nakedly and if not too plainly I am sure plain enough I shall not here repeat to that I remit the Reader This juice of Grapes this Toad is said to drink that is not only in the gross Conjunction
which is an Impastation of the body with the Water to the temper of Dough or Leaven which the Water readily doth such affinity there is between the Water and the Body as the Philosopher saith this Water is friendly and pleasant to the metals But over and besides the Water soaks Radically into our Body being circulated upon it according as the Philosopher saith When it s own sweat is returned to the Body it perforates it marvellously Thus the Body drinks in the Water or Juice of Grapes not so much then when they are first mingled but most especially when by decoction it pierceth radically to the very profundity of it and makes it to alter its Form This is the Water which teareth the Bodies and makes them no Bodies but flying Spirits like a Smoak Wind or Fume as Artephius speaketh plentifully This operation is performed in a short while in comparison of Subterraneal operations of Nature which are done in a very long time therefore it is that so many Philosophers say that it is done in a very short time and yet it is not without cause that so many of the Philosophers have complained of the length of this decoction Therefore the same Artephius who had said that this fire of the Water of our Mercury doth that in a short time above ground that Nature was in performing a 1000 years doth in another place say that the tincture doth not come out at once but by little and little each day and hour till after along time the decoction be compleat according to the saying of the Philosopher Boyl boyl and again boyl and accompt not tedious our long decoction So fast SO then this expression here that the Toad doth drink in the Juice of Grapes so fast doth not imply but that this work must have the true time of Nature which is indeed a long time and so is every decoction at least so they will seem to the Artist who attends the fire day by day and yet must wait for the fruit with Patience till the Heaven have showred down upon the Earth the former and latter Rain yet be not out of heart but attend until the compleatment for then a large Harvest will abundantly recompence all thy toyl Till over-charged with the Broth his Bowels all to brast IT follows in the Vision that at length the Toad over-charged with the broth did burst asunder This broth is the same which the fair Medea did prepare and pour upon the two Serpents which did keep the Golden Aples which grew in the hidden Garden of the Virgins Hesperides For the Vinegre of the Philosophers being circulated upon the Body doth engender a substance like unto bloudy Broth and makes Colours of the Rainbow to appear in the ascension and descension upon your Lyon until the Eagles have at length devoured the Lyon and all together being killed with the Carion of the Carcasses become a venemous Toad creeping on the Earth and a Crow swimming in the midst of the dead Sea The Juice of Grapes then which is our Mercury drawn from the Chameleon or Air of our Physical Magnesia and Chalybs Magical being circulated upon our true Terra Lemnia after it is grossly mixed with it by Incorporation and set to our fire to digest doth still enter in and upon our Body and searcheth the profoundity of it and makes the occult to become manifest by continual ascension and descension till all together become a Broth which is a mean substance of dissevered qualities between the Water and the Body till at length the Body burst asunder and be reduced into a Powder like to the Atoms of the Sun black of the blackest and of a viscous matter And after that from poysoned bulk he cast his venom fell THis Reduction of the Body thus in this water ingenders so venomous a Nature that truly in the whole World there is not a ranker Poyson or stink according as Philosophers witness And therefore he is said to cast his fell venom from his poysoned bulk in as much as the exhalations are compared to the Invenomed Fume of Dragons as Flamell in his Summary hath such an Allusion But the Philosopher as he adds in his Hieroglyphicks of the two Dragons never feels his stink unless he break his Vessels but only he judgeth it by the colours proceeding from the rottenness of the Confections And indeed it is a wonder to consider which some Sons of Art are eye-witnesses of that the fixed and most digested Body of Gold should so rot and putrifie as if it were a Carcass which is done by the admirable Divine virtue of our dissolving Water which no Money can purchase All these operations which are so enlarged by variety of expressions center in one which is killing the quick and reviving the dead For grief and pain whereof his members all began to swell THis venemous fume of exhalations returning upon the Body cause it to swell all over according to the saying of the Philosopher The Body in this Water puffeth up swelleth and putrifieth as a Grain of Corn taking the nature living and vegetable therefore for this cause this Water is in this sence called by the Philosophers their Leaven for as Leaven causeth Past to swell so this fermenteth the body and causeth it to tumefie and puff up it is also called venom for as venom causeth swelling so this Water by its reiteration uncessantly upon our body This operation is uncessant from the first incitation of the matter even until compleat putrefaction for the Toad doth always send forth his exhalations being rather called the Lyon till he be over-come in part and then when the Body begins a little to put on the Nature of the Water and the Water of the Body then it is compared to two Dragons one winged and the other without wings and lastly when that stinking Earth appears which Hermes calls his Terra Foliata or Earth of Leaves then it is most properly called the Toad of the Earth from the first excitation even to the last of this putrefaction which exhalations are at the beginning for a time White and afterwards become Yellowish Blewish and Blackish from the virulency of the matter which exhalations hourly condensing and ever and anon running down like little veins in drops do enter the Body marvelously and the more it is entred the more it swells and puffs up till at length it be compleatly putrefied With drops of poysoned sweat approaching thus his secret Den. THe following two Verses then are but a more Ample description of this work of volatization which is an ascension and descension or circulation of the confections within the Glass Which Glass here called the secret Den is else-where called by the same Author a little Glassen-tun and is an ovall Vessel of the purest White Glass about the bigness of an ordinary Hen-Egg in the which about the quantity of an ounce of 8 drachms of the confection in all mixed is a convenient proportion to be
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
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
the Body shall be brought to have a vegetative Soul for it will shoot forth as with Sprigs and Leaves and Branches and after it will resolve into Powder like Atoms In the time of this process many colours shall come and go rise and set which will be a pleasant spectacle to the beholder and shorten the time wonderfully which else would seem very tedious This Water is like to the venomous Tyre And with it the mighty Triacle is wrought It is a poison most strong of ire A stronger poison cannot be thought Oft times therefore at the Pothecaries it is sought But no man shall thereby be intoxicate From time it is to Medicine Elixerate THis Water is by Philosophers called their Venom and indeed it is a very strong poison to wit to the Body of Sol to which it is mixed but what it is to the Body of Man I never tried my self nor gave it to another nor do I believe did any of they But as concerning the Medicine that is made by it and out of it it is certain that of all Medicines in the World it is the highest for it is the true Arbor vitae which doth answer the universal desires of them who have it in this kind for besides its virtue Curative which it hath in a wonderful miraculous way it can penetrate even to our Constitutive principles which no other Mineral Medicine can do Though Paracelsus glory much of his Renovantia Restaurantia which we have known as being Masters of his secret Alcahest of which if I live I will write a particular Treatise yet it is not his Haematina nor yet his Arcana nor his Elixiria nor his Essentiae nor any of his secrets which are surely noble Medicines that can reach the root of Life which this can and will for it performs all only it cannot prevail against the appointment of God otherwise were it not for that decree it could really keep a man immortal for it renews Youth retards Age and restores to most exquisite and compleat health encreaseth strength wonderfully yea it will not only renew Hair to those from whom it is fallen but it will change the hoary head into a youthful colour which will not grow hoary again for many years nor ever if the use of it were fully known and it were used as it ought to be Hereupon in respect of its wonderful virtue after it is made into Medicine Philosophers have by Analogy concluded that it was before the greatest poison for they have a Maxim ex summo veneno summa Medicina which as I do not always hold true so I shall not here dispute But he who thinks because Philosophers say it is such a deadly poison that it is to be bought at the Apothecaries or Druggists he is mistaken for as it is first bought I confess it is very venomous but this malignity I conceive and know is fully taken away before it become the Philosophers Mercury But whatever it be in its Crudity I am sure it is not so in its Perfection for he who shall take of it then shall be so far from receiving any damage by it that he shall find it to be a soveraign Medicine which hath not its like in the whole Universe For then as is the Triacle true And in its working doth marvels shew Restoring many from death to life But see thou mingle it with no Corrosive But choose it pure and quick running If thou thereby wilt have winning IT is not the Triacle of Galen nor yet of Hippocrates which yet if right made are of great efficacy that can compare to it for first it kills all the venom of any disease or malady so that those diseases which do astonish the beholders are by this overcome even ad miraculum for suppose a man dying with the Tokens of the Plague so that he is upon the very point of departure and the decree be not past for then there is no recovery if he have but a drop of this Elixir poured down so that he swallow it he shall immediately recover and in short time he will be restored to his former health Now that it doth immediately reach the root of Life I shall demonstrate Suppose one with a very languishing disease be consumed to nothing in comparison and for want of Spirits be just going out of the World so the decree be not past if he have but strength even in the Agony of death but to take a drop of this Elixir he will recover and revive and in a few days in comparison will be doubly stronger then ever he was before Suppose one of a very weak Constitution and sickly and every day ill feeble all over if he take of this Elixir it will in a short time alter his Constitution fundamentally so that he shall be far stronger then any other man ordinarily is A noble Philosopher though I scarce believe him to be an Adeptus of the Stone hath wrote of late a small Treatise of Fevers the Lithiasis and the Pestilence and there he saith in one of his Tractates That the loss of strength which is made by Venery and Bloud-letting is wholly irrecoverable It is true and I verily believe that he had Medicines very noble and it is pity but he had this secret to preserve his old age for I seriously profess that of all the Tractates that ever I read they are the most Philosophical but by this expression it is evident that he was ignorant of this secret For although by Venery or a Tabes or Bleeding or by any other way a man be debilitated he may be restored by this Elixir not only to perfect health but also to such a measure of strength which he never had before Yea and a man or woman who is born to hereditary weakness may be changed into a more then ordinary strength by the use of our Medicine or a man who by labour sickness and years is come to the Graves mouth even to drop in it may by use hereof be restored his hair his teeth and his strength so that he shall be of greater agility then in his youth and of greater strength and may live many years provided the period of the Almighties decree be not come For Minerals are of all Sublunary Bodies the most perfect and the best part of them are Metals which when they are perfect defend themselves from all fear of corruption perpetually Now the Spirit of the Metal when it is exalted to a millenary perfection it tingeth all Metals imperfect to an incorruptible purity but then this Spirit must be made a Body according to the saying of Hermes Vis ejus est integra si versa fuerit in terram But this transcendent Tincture may be dissolved into an Oyl or rather a pure Liquor which then is not proper for Metals but is only Medicinal for it is of the nature of Light and therefore it doth as readily concur with our formal vital principle as one flame will