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
appropriated unto Man so is there in the Generation of our Stone much that may answer to the Generation of Man for as Anatomists do allow the Woman fifteen veins conducing to the act of Venery and Procreation and the Man from whom comes the Male Sperm but five so our Stone in his first Composition requires three parts of the Water or Feminine Sperm to one of Sulphur or the Male so the Artist decocting and Nature perfecting the Mastery will be accomplished with the blessing of God Remember now that the more thy Water is the more ought to be thy Internal Fire to dry it up so then when thou shalt make the proportion of Water to the Sun three to one remember that thy number of Eagles which is the proportion of thy Mercury ought to be nine or at most ten This is the highest Acuation of the Water which is best for such a proportion as for seven Eagles two to one is a very good proportion so hast thou proportionably three Eagles to every one of the Water which is added to the Body Some are so acute as to say that with four Eagles well cleansed the Work may be performed and then the proportion must be as three of the Water to two of the Body but the decoction must needs be longer I never yet tryed it knowing the forenamed proportions will do far better and nine months time is a sufficient waiting for a Philosopher Any shorter way is and would be acceptable but more tedious are very unacceptable since they shew nothing more than quicker ways but protract the time of Putrefaction for from that time the Fire of Nature is at work and then every pondus hath the same period provided the Fire be accordingly and the Matter in the Glass not much over the other for one ounce or two will be far sooner accomplished than five or six ounces therefore we advise all rather to content themselves with one ounce or two at most if an ounce succeed you can wish no more This Chapter I will conclude right soon therefore Gross Conjunction charging thee to make but one For seldom have Strumpets Children ybore And so shalt thou never come by our Stone Without thou let the Woman lig alone That after she have once conceived by the Man Her Matrix be shut up from all other than I Shall soon draw to an end concerning this subject for I trow that thou understandest it fully take heed then to my Doctrine mix thy Water with thy Body in a due quantity and grind them together diligently and when thou hast mixed them shut them up in thy Glass carefully and there let them stand till compleat perfection And after thou hast mixed them and set them to heat be sure thou stir them not much less open them or add any thing to them or take ought from them whatever any Author do seem to advise For if thou do contrary to this my Doctrine thou dost run an extreme hazard of losing all for as it is with Harlots who lying with many men conceive rarely of any so if thou joyn crude Mercury after thy first Conjunction I will not say that it is impossible but very unlikely that ever thou shalt attain our Mastery And what I say of putting in fresh Mercury is to be understood of the Body also for if thou shalt add fresh of that thou wilt destroy all for after thou settest them to the Fire thou must expect Conception that is that the Mercury by ascending and descending will extract part of the seminal virtue out of the reins of the Sun which when she hath done there then stands a relation between the Sun and that Mercury as between Husband and Wife Now other Mercury or other Sol are not as yet so related and therefore they are as a third person which Love abhors Therefore mix thy Matters so judiciously at first that thou need not afterwards to wish for any new addition and close your Vessel well and decoct it carefully For such as evermore add crude to crude Opening their Vessel letting their Matters keel The Sperm conceived they nourish not but delude Themselves and spill their Work each deal If therefore thou have list to do wee l Close up thy Matrix and nourish thy Seed With heat continual and temperate if thou wilt speed THey who shall do otherwise as they discover themselves to be too impatient so they certainly will destroy their Operations For were it no other damage then this that they cool their Seed it is an irreparable errour but over and besides the crude Air will they nill they will get in and being as it is a great enemy to Generation it destroys the germinative and living virtue Then instead of getting profit they reap certain loss and instead of attaining truth they get a delusion for no man that understands himself would do it but he that would open a womans Womb that is conceived to make her bring forth sooner or crack an Egg he would set under a Hen to make it hatch more speedily Therefore as I advised before so I do now and shall make it the â—piphonema of this discourse mix thy Seeds and elaborate them with what pains thou canst then shut them in a house of Glass that is to say an ounce in a Glass that would â—old about 16 ounces or 20 or two ounces in a Glass that would hold two ounces or thereabouts of Water distilled set thy Glass in thy Nest about a 4 th part of it in Sand which must be sisted from Stones Let the Neck be fastned either with a Wyre or set into a hole which may be in the Cover of thy Nest the Neck about 6 inches long or longer a little Let thy Athanor be so that thou mayst give in it what heat thou pleasest and keep it about a day or 16 or 12 hours at least without renewing and yet no sensible alteration in heat In this Furnace thou shalt give thy Matter such a Fire as may within the first day or two cause it to boyl like to a Pot over the Fire or as the stormy Sea swelleth in a mighty Wind from the surface of which there will exhale a Vapour which we call the Winds which are in the belly or womb in the forming of our Embrio which will condense at the top the Glass being strong and run down in drops and this continually night and day without ceasing Thus is verified the saying of the Philosopher that our Stone retaineth life and is perfected that is divided and united and at last fixt and congealed by continual boyling and subliming Thus are thy Waters divided the uppermost part carry aloft the Soul with them and the lowermost boyl and tear and soften the Body and make it more fit for the returning Spirit and Soul to work on in their continual descending And when thy Vessel hath stood by months five And Clouds and Eclipses passed each one The light appearing increase thy
former Kingdom he Vnto his Brethren gives The worst of them doth now those Fortunes see That each in plenty lives And what their Brother was before his death That they are now become For he their sickness cures with his breath And makes them live at home No more in bondage bond 's no place can find All liberty enjoy There 's nothing here can hurt for all one mind Have all that would destroy Is banish'd from the Kingly Palace where The Streets with Gold are pav'd The Walls are Silver fine the Gates most clear Intire Gems engrav'd With wondrous Art the Windows glass most pure Which falls nor knocks can break The Drink from fear of venom still is sure Whoso virtue none can speak Whose comes there is at a place arriv'd Where neither want nor death Nor any grief is known a place contriv'd For Saints therein to breath Whom God shall choose and to his Palace bring What need he more desire Then God himself that he may praises sing Kindled with holy fire But he whose hands unclean and heart defil'd These Mysteries forbear For you th' are not cease timely for y' are wild T' have neither wit nor fear AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Fifth Gate Which is PUTREFACTION The Fifth Gate Opened Which is PUTREFACTION Now we begin the Chapter of Putrefaction Without which Pole no Seed can multiply Which must be done only by continual action Of heat in the Body moist not manually For Bodies else may not be altered naturally WE have already run through four Gates the first being opened the rest stand open at will so that thou hast need only to enter The course and method of Philosophers now doth lead us to the Gate of Putrefaction a horrible Gate whose entrance is dark with Cimmerian night dreadful with many windings and turnings And yet it is a Gate so necessary that unless you pass through it you may never expect to reap fruit from your labour for without it can be no Life nor Generation much less desired Multiplication therefore saith the Poet Felices atrum quotquot habere queant The cause of this death or corruption or rottenness proceeds from the action of continual heat not so much of the external Fire of the Athanor as of the Compound within it self in which the Fire of the Water which is against Nature doth open the perfect Body by continual contrition and decoction and so le ts loose its Sulphur that was incarcerate which is Fire of Nature that so between these two in continual action and passion together with the external heat continually acting the whole Compound is brought to corruption being sometimes roasted with external heat which doth sublime the moisture which again of its own accord returns continually and doth moisten the Earth so long until by reason of the heat it have drunk up the moisture wholly and then it dyes And unless thou see this sign of rotting of thy Compound which is done in a black colour a stinking odour and with a discontinuity of parts thy labour will still be in vain for thou mayst never expect what thou desirest to have a new form brought in till the old form be corrupted and put off Sith Christ doth witness without the Grain of Wheat Dye in the Ground increase thou mayst none get And in likewise without the Matter putrefie It may in no wise truly be alterate Neither thy Elements may be divided kindly Nor the Conjunction of them perfectly celebrate That therefore thy labour be not frustrate The privity of our putrefying well understand Or ever thou take this Work in hand THis is so constant to Natures constant proceedings that the painful Husbandman that he may have an increased Harvest commits his precious Seed to the Ground in it to rot and to be corrupted that so a new Life may spring from the old dead Body nor doth he ever expect increase so long as it remains in his Garner Right so we so long as our Material principles continue in their own nature and form they are but of a single value for Gold and Mercury are two such principles that they will for ever delude as many as proceed to work on them in a Sophistical way for whatever the Artist may think they will remain the same unto the end of the World unless pure Sol being mixed with its own pure and appropriated Mercury and set in a due heat of digestion there arise a mutual action and passion between them which without the laying on of the Artists hands will tend to a new Generation For in a convenient Fire in which the Compound may perpetually and uncessantly boyl and the subtle parts may ascend and circulate upon the gross without intermission the most digested Virtue or Soul of the fixed Body which is his basis of Tincture will be extracted by the Water and this will mix it self with the pure Spirit of the Water and with this it will ascend and return until a total separation be made of the pure from the impure and the subtle from the gross Then shall the Body draw down its Soul again and by the power of the most High it shall be united and with it the Spirit of life shall be joyned also so that all three shall become one with an union indissolvable but all this pre-supposeth a Putrefaction or Corruption of one form else cannot there be an Introduction of another Therefore since this mystery of Putrefaction is not more secret then necessary so necessary that without it there is nothing can be done to purpose that is to say with profit I shall be a little plain and full in the prosecution of this mystery For in the knowledge of this consists all that is required to make a Philosopher All the intentions of the Artist must be only so to prepare and order things that he may be sure of this terminus and when he is there come he is as sure a Master as if he had the Stone in his Cabinet By the failing of this sign the Operator is always to turn either backward to seek out some other principles or forward or to the right hand or to the left but when he is Master of this he then can fail in nothing but in the Regimen of the outward heat And Putrefaction may thus defined be After Philosophers definition to be of Bodies the slaying And in our Compound a division of things three The killed Bodies into Corruption forth leading And after unto Regeneration them ableing For things being in the Earth without doubt Be engendred of Rotation of the Heavens about THe definition that the Philosophers give of this Operation is perpetually Allegorical for this Gate they have named by all Metaphors almost in the World especially from death and dead men therefore they allegorize the Vessel in this station to Grave or Tomb and emblematically discover this Operation by the types of Skuls dead Bones and rotten Carcasses according to which Metaphors they call Putrefaction the
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
way without expence in an inconsiderable time to the lazy Book-men a play without tedious toil to the unstable rash hasty multiplicity of Distillations But listen to me for truly I will thee teach BUt to thee supposing thy qualifications to be Honesty Secresie Studiousness and Indefatigableness we will shew the Truth yet so that it may be hid from the Vulgar yet plain enough to an industrious attentive Reader Which is this Mercury most profitable PHilosophers have hidden much under the Homonymium of Mercury so that it is no hard matter for those that peruse their Books to mistake them yea as many as God will have excluded from this Art shall certainly mistake For many things are by them named by the name of Mercury which are altogether useless in this Mastery and many Processes have they deciphered which themselves never did I for my part shall not tread in their metaphorical steps but shall herein candidly follow the path of profound Ripley whose Text I annex to my Discourse as I go because it is an elaborate Piece in excellent Method on whom I do not so much comment for I write mine own experimental Knowledge but rather intend this Treatise for a Light to that excellent Light in Alchymy these Labours of mine being intire of themselves Only to help thee to my utmost I have confined my Discourse to his Method which I might as other Philosophers have done have scattered here and there confusedly Being to thee nothing deceiveable AS then I have chosen Ripley's Method to follow so will I imitate his Ingenuity and do solemnly profess not to be deceiveable to thee in any thing though I shall not so unfold the Mysteries that bare reading shall suffice to shew the unveiled Diana Know therefore assuredly that when the Philosophers say That their Matter is every where c. This they speak only for the blinding of all such who taking the Philosophers meaning according to the bare sound of their words do reap Trifles instead of Treasures I shall therefore let you understand that this subject of the Philosophers is considered either in reference to its Matter or formal Vertue in reference to the former it is a concrete of Water as all other Compounds are in respect of the latter it participates of a Celestial Virtue and that in a high degree in both respects It is said to be in every place for the original matter which is Water passeth equally through the whole Family of Concretes and for the celestial Influence it is so universal that nothing is hidden from the heat of it so that indeed in this sence it is said to be every where Moreover the Stone being the System of the great World doth in some way or other represent every thing which is or can be perceived by man I mean in reference to some or other operation colour or quality and therefore the Wise have described it almost by all things imaginable for to every thing in some or other circumstance it hath resemblance It is more near in some things than in some YEt to speak properly for information and not to conceal the Secret we profess that there is but one kind in which our Stone is found and in number two understand me not as the Philosopher finds things in his first laborious Preparation for so one of the two subjects which being of one kind enter the supernatural work of Generation of our fiery Stone I say our crude Sperm flows from a Trinity of Substances in one Essence of which two are extracted out of the Earth of their Nativity by the third and then become a pure milky Virgin like Nature drawn from the Menstruâ—â—â— of our sordid Whore Take heed therefore what I to thee write ANd now I call God to witness that I will shew you a great Mystery our Stone is in one part of a perfect nature which we would exalt into a more then most perfect and for this end we stand in need of our true Fountain which I have elsewhere described and shall not now repeat This Fountain hath three Springs and these are three Witnesses which â—estifie to the Artist of the truth of his proceedings these are the Spirit the Water and the Blood and these three agree in one the Water is a Mercurial Bond which the Sophisters can behold so far as the outward shell reacheth but the wise man can behold his hidden secret Centre the Blood is of our Green Lyon which is indeed the greenest or rawest of the three for it hath no manner of Metalline Sulphur no not a grain and therefore is Totally Volatile and it is more raw than the common Water and yet it is called the Blood for a most secret reason because it is the feat of the Life which is the Spirit as Blood in man is the seat of his Life yea the Spirit by this Soul of our Green Lyon is made manifest and is united to it so that though it be very green or unripe yet that inhabits it which is both pure and ripe and can and will digest it with the Water and make both become life with life Now the Spirit is nothing else but a Chaos the Wonder of the Wonders of God which every man almost hath and knows it not because as it appears to the World it is compact in a vile despised form yet is it so useful that in humane Affairs none can want it to the Philosopher it appears united to the Blood that is of our Green Lyon which truly is not a Lyon till the spirit be joyned with it and then it is made able to devour all Creatures of its kind And these three agree in one they are not absolutely one mark that our Fire is not of the matter and yet it is united with the matter as if it were of one form with it and there is an agreement in one though not a radical union for the spirit which is the Fire is separable from the Water and the Blood and then is our Lyon actually Green but ceaseth then to be our Lyon but is the true matter to multiply Emeraulds more glorious than natural For if to thee Knowledge never come Therefore yet shalt thou me not twite ANd now indeed if any be ignorant let him be ignorant I know not what more to say and not transgress the silence of Pythagoras I have told you that our matter is two-fold crude and fixed the fixed is by Nature perfected to our hands and we need only to have it made more then most perfect which Nature alone could never perform nor is there any thing that can thus exalt Tinctures but our dissolving Water which I told you floweth from three Springs the one is a common Well at which all draw and of which Water many use this Well hath in it a Saturnine drossiness which make the Waters unuseful these frigid superfluities are purged by two other Springs through which the Water of this Well is artificially
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
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
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
pass from darkness of Purgatory to light Of Paradise in whiteness Elixir of great might THis is a noble step from Hell to Heaven from the bottom of the Grave to the top of Power and Glory from obscurity in blackness to resplendent whiteness from the height of venenosity to the height of Medicine Oh Nature how dost thou alter things into things casting down the high and mighty and again exalting them being base and lowly Oh Death how art thou vanquished when thy Prisoners are taken from thee and carried to a state and place of Immortality This is the Lords doing and it is marvellous in our eyes And that thou mayst the rather to Putrefaction Win this example thou take c. The heart of an Oak which hath of Water continual infusion For though it in Water lay an hundred years and more Yet shouldest thou find it sound as ever it was before O Happy Gate of blackness which art the passage to this so glorious a change study therefore whoever applyest thy self to this Art only to know this Secret for know this and know all and contrarywise be ignorant of this and be ignorant of all Therefore if that possible thou mayst attain the depth of this Mystery I shall endeavour to unfold it to thy capacity by similitudes and examples Thou knowest that if a solid piece of Wood lie in water perpetually it will tire the patience of the most patient expecter to see it rot for it will abide many Generations and in the end be as sound as when it was first laid in Yea some contend that in our days Pine-Trees are dug up in their intire proportion which have been buried ever since the Floud being found in such places in which no Histories ever mentioned that such Trees grew and so deep under ground as it is almost incredible which certainly have layn at least many hundred years and yet the Wood as sound as any other Tree of that sort which hath not been cut down above a year or two such is the force of constant Hume-faction to prevent the ordinary corruption of Timber But and thou keep it sometimes wet and sometimes dry As thou mayst see in Timber And so even likewise c. Sometimes our Tree must with the Sun be brent BUt contrarywise Timber which is kept wet sometimes and dry sometimes as usually the foundations of Timber Houses are if not secured by the Masons Art it would tire the Householders patience to see how soon such Timber will rot and molder away and become fit for nothing which is a thing so well known that the experience of every Rustick almost can teach it him So resolve our Stone must be used if thou intend to have it putrefie kindly our Wheel for Putrefaction must go round in a constant Elevation or Extraction of the Water or Humidity from the Body by which Operation our Man the Sun is helped in his acting and this Water must as constantly return to the Earth to moisten it by which the Woman the Moon is helped in her acting And then with Water we must it keel That so to rotting we may bring it wee l BEtween these two various Operations which one and the same Fire produceth our Body is both heated and cooled his sweat is drawn forth and returned upon him again by the which means it is triturated ground softned and made weak even unto death and dying it rots and putrefies changing colours from one into another until at the length it becomes black as Ink or Pitch which is our Toad our Crow our Tomb filled with rottenness our Golgotha or place of dead bones our Terra foliata or Earth of Leaves For now in wet c. To be shall cause it soon to putrefie And so shall thou bring to rotting thy Gold Intreat thy Bodies c. And in thy putrefying with heat be not too swift Lest in the Ashes thou seek after thy thrift OUr Operation then saith Morien is nothing else but extracting Water from the Earth and returning it again upon the Earth so long and so often till the Earth putrefie for by elevation of the moisture the Body is heated and dried and by returning it again it is cooled and moistned by the continuation of which successive Operations it is brought to corrupt and rot to lose its form and for a season to remain as dead This is the true intention and manner of our working and there is no other manner of working that can be invented that can give thee the effect of this our Operation for this is the true way and means by which thy Body of Gold will be destroyed and no other way profitable for our Art Proceed therefore as I have directed thee and swerve not either to the right hand or to the left Take this Body which I have shewed thee and joyn it with the Spirit which is proper to it which the Wise men have called their Venus or Goddess of Love and circulate these two Natures one upon the other until the one have conceived by the other But beware you urge not the Spirit too much but remember that he is a volatile substance and if he be over-provoked he will certainly break the Vessel and fly and leave thee the ruines of thy Glass for a recompence of thy over-speedy rashness which trust me will make thee fetch a deep Philosophical sigh and say when it is too late I would I had been content to wait Natures time Let the Fire then be such in which thy Spirit may be so stirred up as to return to its Body in the Glass and not so irritated as to break the Vessel and return to the Ashes or Sand of the Nest or stick about the sides of the Cover of your Nest or else fly about in the Room wherein the Artist is and lodge in his Head and so make it far more unconstant then it was before by adding to his rash giddiness a Paralytical shaking Therefore the Water out of the Earth thou draw And make the Soul therewith for to ascend Then down again into the Earth it throw That they oft-times so ascend and descend PRoceed therefore not as a Fool but as a Wise man make the Water of thy Compound to arise and circulate so long and often until the Soul that is to say the most subtle virtue of the Body arise with it circulating with the Spirit in manner of a fiery form by which both the Spirit and Body are enforced to change their colour and complexion for it is this Soul of the dissolved Bodies which is the subject of Wonders it is the life and therefore quickens the dead it is the Vegetative Soul and therefore it makes the dead and sealed Bodies which in their own Nature are barren to fructifie exceedingly Therefore if this return unto the Earth from which it first took its flight it will make it for to fructifie and to increase in Tincture and in the Earth it self will multiply
Art we have written that which never heretofore was by any revealed NOw for a close of this most secret Gate Whereat few enter none but they who are By Gods grace favour'd it s not luck ne sate That in disclosing this can claim a share It is a portion which is very rare Bestow'd on those whom the most High shall chuse To such the Truth I freely shall declare Nor ought through Envy to them shall refuse Nor with unwonted Riddles shall their hopes abuse Of uncouth subjects now shall be my Song My mind intends high Wonders to reveal Which have lain hidden heretofore full long Each Artist striving them how to conceal Lest wretched Caitiffs should these Treasures steal Nor Villains should their Villanies maintain By this rare Art which danger they to heal In horrid Metaphors veil'd an Art most plain Lest each Fool knowing it should it when known disdain Remember Man how he produced was How formed from a lump of abject Clay From whence Created he each thing doth pass Which next to Angels ever saw the day For God in him infus'd so bright a Ray Of his own Image which the Body joyn'd To it ennobled so that both pourtray Their Maker as though Heaven with Earth combin'd A little System of the Vniverse to find But yet though he of Soul and Body both Was made and of the two the nobler part The Soul by far which for the most part doth The subject nominate yet that same Art That made so rare a piece doth from the part Less noble name the whole Adam or Dust Wherein a Mystery was couch'd whose heart Of life the Centre to Earth's bowels must Return the Earth it self for Man's sake being curs'd Right so our Stone containeth Natures two One hidden subtle Soul Heavens Progeny The other gross compact terrene also Earth's product must to Earth by destiny Which when resolv'd is made a feculency To sight but the Coelestial part is still Though over-clouded most pure inwardly And shall at last most Pearlie drops distill Which shall the barren Earth with fruit in plenty fill Thus all our Secrets from the Earth do flow 'T is Earth which for our Base at first we take Our Water also unto Earth must go And both together must a Limus make Which we with respite by our Art must bake Till all become a Spirit glorify'd Whose firmness wasting time shall never shake By perfect union th' are so surely ty'd Each Element the other three within it self doth hide Take then that thing which Gold we please to call But 't is not Gold yet Gold it is in truth Metalline 't is yet from a Mineral It flows which Art by Nature holp renew'th And to a Fool an ugly face it sheweth Yet to a Son of Art it lovely seems 'T is Stellar white and tender in his youth And vile appears in many mens esteems Yea the most part of men it for a trifle deems From it is made a subject of great price Shew it the Goldsmith and he 'l swear 't is Gold But look you sell it not if you be wise The Basis 't is of Secrets manifold This for their secret main the Sages hold The like is in Gold digged from the Mine But to procure it is scarce to be told That you may understand though every line Were plainly wrote yet might your practice oft decline For 't is a Labour hardly to be borne So many tricks and turnings in it be And he that tryeth it is surely forlorne Vnless a crafty Master credit me For I have tryed both yet could not see How any in this way can be secure I therefore who have vowed secrecy Have writ this way which we can scarce endure For knowledge-sake to try its ease will none allure Our Kingly road I also hinted have Our way in which a Fool can hardly erre Our secret way which much sad toyl will save Which is so easie that I may averr If thou shouldst see it thou wouldst it preferr To any Earthly pleasure yet beware That you mistake not for I do averr A mingled Doctrine these lines do declare For both ways in this Book of mine do claim a share Learn to distinguish every sentence well And know to what Work it doth appertain This is great skill which few as I can tell By all their reading yet could ere attain And yet of Theory this is the main Also to know accordingly to give Due heat which in one way thou must be fain T' increase ten-fold thou mayst me well believe For what doth one decoct t'other away will drive Also their Operations different Appear the one thou must sublime and boyl O tedious way in which much time is spent And many errours which the Work will spoyl The other silently doth make no toyl Like the still voice which to Eliah came About which Work thou needest not to broyl Nor wantst thou â—iery Vulcan's parching flame A far more gentle heat begins and ends this Game But if thou canst each Work perform apart And knowst them afterward to reconcile Then art thou Master of a Princely Art The very success will thy hopes beguile Thou hast all Natures Works rankt on a File And all her Treasures at command dost keep On thee the Fates shall never dare but smile No Mystery is now for thee too deep Th' art Natures Darling whether thou dost wake or sleep Pardon my plainness if the Art thou knowst 'T was the fruit of my untame desire To profit many and without a boast No man above my â—andour shall aspire My zeal was kindled with Minerva's Fire And thou who to this Art wilt now apply My â—ook in Natures way shall lead thee higher Then ever thou alone mayst hope to fly If only thou shalt favour'd be by Destiny Peruse these lines and being read review And read again and on them meditate Each reading shall fresh Mysteries and new Discover which are scatter'd in each Gate For they so linked are that all relate To each and we our words have woven so That thou mayst soon erre by misleading â—ate Vnless for to distinguish thou do know Remember that 'mongst Briars thick sweet Roses grow AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Sixth Gate Which is CONGELATION The Sixth Gate Opened Which is CONGELATION Congelation c. It is of soft things in duration of colour white c. How to congeal he needeth not much to care for Elements But Congelations be made in divers wise of Spirits c. Of Salts dissolved c. and then congeal'd And some dissolveth congealing manually c. But such congealing is not c. HAving largely run through the first five Gates in which is all the difficulty pre-supposing now that you have passed the shades of the Night and are now come to the approaching of the Day whose dawning is to be seen soon after the darkness of the Night and is discovered by variety of gay Clouds which run before the Sun in its up-rising The first remarkable
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
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
this thing should be Moreover it was my hopes so to have ingratiated my self into your favour as to have been a Servant unto you who I see are otherwise provided of a Lover Then said she My Friend what you admire in this strange Metamorphosis of me know that it is by a Magical Vertue which is alone given to me from GOD my immediate Lord and Ruler and for any Diabolical Art which your Scruple seems to manifest your suspition of it is because of your unexperience in these things and this your Ignorance is no way provoking unto me for in these Affairs though a man yet you are but a Child and this liberty I allow all my Sons while they are Children so to speak so to think and so to act and I love to hear and answer their childish prattle Know then that the Devil is but one of my Servants and in my Kingdom he doth serve GOD his and my Lord And though of all my Servants he is the worst yet he can do nothing of himself either without me or against me or above me He for the most part is a deceitful Jugler and doth make things appear that are not but whatever is actually effected by him is nothing but what is in my Power He only applies Agents to Patients and adds a little of his own villanous qualities as a circumstantial aggravation of the horror of what he thus by my virtue brings to pass and then his villanous mind attributes that to himself which is my Act that so he might arrogate the honour due to my Lord and his Master Now I will tell you a strange thing which yet is very true I am obedient to all my Subjects which are many and they obey me I rule them and they do as it were inforce me for so my Lord hath pleased to ordain it If they call me I am straight at hand yea in my Body which thou seest which is no Body but only representative for I am all Spirit I feel the Sympathies and Antipathies the Actions and Passions of every thing in the World and I must be always present for nothing is or can be well done without I be present I always work according to the subject and its disposition which doth alter the effect wonderfully In a word whatever thou seest that I am and more then thou canst see by far though thou hadst the Eyes of Argus My Rule is not as is the Rule of Princes among Men but I am serviceable to all yea to the least Worm in the World and because I am so serviceable therefore my Master hath appointed that nothing can or may disobey me or offer violence to me the Devil here hath no power though malice enough Therefore my Lord hath given me his own Diploma to make me the more Honourable first An Omnisciency of all things which are done in the World as touching the Being Conservation or Mutation of them and next An Omnipresency by which I am every where present at once and I am seated in the Will of God which is my Centre All my Subjects are put under Man therefore he hath a free power to act any thing within his reach in the World and the Soul of Man is as it were a Magnet unto me and all my Subjects in its Exaltation and Vnion by Faith to my Lord and Master though since Man lost his Dignity he lost also his Knowledge and his Will is liable to the Temptations of the Devil and so as many as by renouncing their Creator do devote themselves to Satan he hath by his confederacy power to exalt their Will and to apply their Power to the effecting of things possible in Nature and impossible for the Devil to perform alone whose pride would scorn to crave help if he could and beyond the knowledge of the inthralled Caytiff who mistaking the effect and not seeing how it was done by himself and not Satan though his power for want of knowledge to employ it without his help were made use of by him and applied according to his own Devilish Design the Wretch is insnared to bind over both his Soul and Body to the Devil as a requital of this Service so crafty a Deceiver is he But this being from my present scope I shall forbear to speak further of it at present lest I should distract not edifie you Now as concerning your jealousie for that you see me naked with this King know that this place and my Kingdom are in the State of Innocency though we are by the Fall of Adam laid subject to Vanity and till the final Restitution of that Fall I am forbidden to work any thing of my own accord beyond the state of fading corruptibility though all things have an incorruptible Spirit which when Heaven and Earth shall be renewed shall cause an Immutable Glory in all these things Know then that this King is my Servant and he hath many Brethren who in their passage to him are taken Prisoners and kept in bondage and there is no way to Redeem them unless he give his Flesh and Blood for their Ransom which cannot be effectual unless he die and arise from the Dead This I cannot perform alone my self nor can any help me herein but Man alone for God hath here limited my power I cannot bring Agents and Patients together though he hath given me power to work on them being composed and to effect what may serve for the Ransom of those poor Captives and he hath given man a free power to act in subordination to him in the World though through the Fall the Wings of this power are not clipt at all but clogged with Ignorance that it is very uneffectual in comparison of its virtue If thou couldest but understand and believe thy very Soul would command all Nature in the whole Fabrick of it for if thou didst but know things as they are thou wouldest withal clearly see the Dignity of thy Soul being the Image of God and this would command Faith and kindle Desire Now Faith and a kindled Desire in the Soul is that extatical Passion which attracts the whole Phaenomena of Nature This is the Dignity of a Mental Man Now then my Friend hearken to me and what I advise that do help me in what I cannot and I will help thee in what thou canst not so shalt thou be to GOD subordinate Lord both of me and mine and the Blood of this King which redeems his Brethren will give thee a Medicine to command all the Imperfections of thy mortal Body and though it be no Antidote against Death the irrevocable Decree being past yet it triumphs over all the Miseries of Life both of Poverty and Sickness and it possesseth a Man of the most incomparable Treasures of this World Then full of Admiration with Tears for very Joy trickling down abundantly I bespake her and said Lady I thank you for your so great favour to me as so familiarly to discourse with me
though to them their Light seem clear enough yet can they see nothing by it but what is phantastical and mystically or sophistically written by the Envious for the seducing of such fanciful Doters therefore when once the Light of Nature is brought to their station it discovers Cimmerian darkness there where their imaginary Light only shines such as is Fox-fire and Glow-worms Tails that shine only in the dark This Light makes their Eyes so tender that the Lamp of Nature makes them fly Moreover whatever is written according to this Light they cannot see nay they cannot endure the Light of the true Luna of the wise men for any true Light discovers their Darkness and yet their Darkness is uncapable of apprehending the Light Now in that you went in among them without your Candle it was a bold adventure for had you lost your Thread you could never have returned Then I looked into my Tower and did as I was directed and again I went to view those parts of Cimmerian Darkness once more yet with my Candle in mine hand and my Thread at my Girdle when I came the second time at the sight of this Light all fled so that I could not meet with any but I entered into several turnings which I saw and found in them several works curiously erected in which I might guess they aimed at nothing less than the Philosophers Stone With Sulphurs I Found one Furnace most curiously built in which all degrees of heat imaginable by the Art of man might be kept with one fire in which was set a multitude of curious Glasses in which were several Matters some digesting others subliming others distilling others calcining and about the Glasses and the Furnace was written this of Geber Per Deum Sulphur est omne illud illuminans quod est supra terram By this I knew that Sulphur was the subject on which was wrought and indeed with so great cunning that I could not but admire the ingenuity of the men and knowing that what a man prizeth though it be a trifle yet to spoil or destroy that would be an injury I meddled not with any Glass for indeed there were Labourers that fled not because they knew nothing but only wrought as they were directed and when I came they could not perceive that I had any Candle in my hand and wondred their Masters should fly so from a phansie Moreover I found that they could not see any light from the Fox-fire and Glow-worms tails which were there but the place being dark as being under ground they wrought by Candles and Lamps which yet could give their Masters no light but they sought all the world over for those shining subjects Yet I could notwithstanding both discern utter darkness which the Rays of my Candle would not enlighten Then said I to the Workmen What is this that is brought in here Oh said they they are Sol and Luna terrestrial whereby our Masters can see clearly the Natures of all things in the world and to make by their light the great Elixir and though we can see no light in them or very little it is because of our Ignorance in these things therefore we use our Lamps to work by Where are your Masters said I. They ran away said they because when you came they said you were a Devil and brought an ominous light with you and if they did but once see that with a full view their Works would all vanish they did therefore lay a few Charms and ran away Then I looked and the ground under me was full of Crosses and Circles at which I laughed and departed into another Room Or Salts preparate in divers wise Neither with Corrosives nor with Fire alone Neither with Vinegar nor with Waters ardent Nor with the vapour of Lead our Stone Calcined is according to our intent All those to Calcining which are so bent From this hard Science withdraw their hand Till they our Calcining better understand ANd there I found in the like sort rare Furnaces with this Inscription Sal Metallorum est Lapis Philosophorum many processes I beheld which would be tedious to relate On I passed from thence and in another Room I found large Furnaces in which they were labouring about Waters for t others were with strong reverberations calcining Lead Tin Copper Iron and all Metals and Minerals others were drawing Spirit of Vinegar with a great care till it became exquisitely sharp and in this they laboured to calcine several Metalline bodies others were rectifying Spirit of Wine so long till no Body almost or Receiver could hold it it was so subtile and this they said was the true Water of Life that must do the work others were subliming of Lead hoping after it was exquisitely sublimed to have out of it that Menstruum which should effect the Stone without any further laying on of hands This when I had seen I returned to my Furnace and recruited my Fire as I was directed and made a particular relation of what I had seen and desired the verdict of Nature upon them all She told me That they could never by this way expect any thing but loss I asked her if they might not with trying many things at length hit the right She told me No they had not any ground of truth nor could they expect either the great secret or any other particular profitable truth in that way Then said I Noble Lady pray let me know the reason of their error that I may know how to avoid the like For by such Calcination their bodies be shent Which minisheth the moisture of our Stone Therefore when bodies to powder are brent Dry as ashes of Tree or Bone Of such Calxes then will we none For moisture we multiply radical In Calcining minishing none at all THen said she Besides that they work not on the true Matter they work not in a right way which are two most desperate errors for our work is to make a substance fluid penetrating and entring that may have ingress into imperfect Metals for which cause we do preserve humidity without which our Stone cannot be penetrative So then instead of purifying the crude and ripening what is raw by these Calcinations the tender Soul is put to flight and the crudities are the more strongly vitrified so that all hope of fruit is wholly by this means taken away for take this for a rule whatever either by violence of Fire or Corrosives is turned into a dry Powder or Calx it is wholly reprobate in our work for though we Calcine yet it is in such a Fire in which our moisture is not burnt and in such a Vessel so closed that the Spirits are retained and in a word so sweet is our Regimen in reference to our Matter that moisture is advanced and is made more unctuous and by consequent more ingressive And for a sure ground of our true Calcination Work wittily only kind with kind For kind unto kind hath appetitive
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
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
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
of increase with their hands filled with sheaves and their mouths with the praises of the Lord thus the chosen or redeemed of the Lord shall return with Songs and everlasting Joy shall be upon their heads and sighing and sorrows shall fly away For first the Sun in his uprising obscurate Shall be and pass the Waters of Noah's Floud On Earth which were a hundred days continuate And fifty away ere all these Waters goed Right so our Waters as Wise men understood Shall pass that thou with David may say Abierunt in sicco flumina bear this away REmember then this Chymical Maxim namely that a sad cloudy morning begins a fair day and a chearfull noon-tide for our Work is properly to be compared to a day in which the morning is dark and cloudy so that the Sun appears not After that the Sky is over-clouded and the Air cold with Northerly winds and much Rain falls which endures for its season but after that the Sun breaks out and shines hotter and hotter till all become dry and then at Noon-day not a Cloud appearing but all clear from one end of the Heaven to the other But our Waters may more fitly be compared to Noah's Floud or Deluge then to a day-showr by reason of their continuance for before our Waters shall all be overcome and dried up by prevailing siccity it will be about 5 months in which time the Artist shall be held in constant horrour according as the Allegory of Arisleus hath it Sed ne poeniteat faciem fuligine pingi Adferet haec Phoebi nigra favilla juâ—ar Wait patiently for thou shalt see the Day-star arising with deliverance and these Waters shall through the command of the Almighty abate Jupiter then shall rule in whose reign all things shall be restored for by constant decoction thy Body shall have virtue to receive Tincture and to retain it and to increase it by which it shall be renewed and shall by little and little digest all the moisture which then shall be unto it as nourishment Milk of Life which we call Virgins Milk Then shalt thou have leisure to contemplate these wonders of the most High which if they do not ravish and astonish thee in the beholding of them it is because God hath not intended this Science to thee in Mercy but in Judgment to wit that it should be unto thee a snare and trap and a stumbling-block at which thou shalt stumble and fall and never rise again Remember then when once thou shalt see the renewing of these Natures that with humble heart and bended knees thou praise and extoll and magnifie that gracious God who hath been nigh unto thee and heard thee and directed thine Operations enlightned thy Judgment for certainly flesh and bloud never taught thee this but it was the free gift of that God who giveth to whom he pleaseth Soon after that Noah planted this Vineyard Which Royally flourished and brought forth Grapes anon After which space thou shalt not be afeard NOw as the Earth when the Waters of the Floud were abated was as it were renewed even so thy Earth is made new and the Rain-bow is to thee a sign that there shall never again happen such another Deluge as thou hast now passed Thy Earth then being renewed behold how it is decked with an admirable green colour which is then named the Philosophers Vineyard This greenness after the perfect whiteness is to thee a token that thy Matter hath re-attained through the will and power of the Almighty a new vegetative life observe then how this Philosophical Vine doth seem to flower and to bring forth tender green Clusters know then that thou art now preparing for a rich Vintage Thy Stone hath already passed through many hazards and yet the danger is not quite over although it be not great for thy former experience may now guide thee if rash joy do not make thee mad For in like wise shall follow the flourishing of our Stone COnsider now that thou art in process to a new Work and though in perfect whiteness thy Stone was incombustible yet in continuing it on the Fire without moving it is now become tender again therefore though it be not in so great danger of Fire now as heretofore yet immoderacy now may and will certainly spoil all and undo thy hopes Govern with prudence therefore during the while that these colours shall come and go and be not either over-hasty nor despondent but wait the end with patience And soon that after thirty days are gone Thou shalt have Grapes right as Ruby red Which is our Adrop our Usifur and our red Lead FOr in a short time thou shalt find that this green will be overcome by the Azure and that by the pale wan colour which will at length come to a Citrine which Citrine shall endure for the space of 46 days Then shall the heavenly Fire descend and illuminate the Earth with inconceivable Glory the Crown of thy Labours shall be brought unto thee when our Sol shall sit in the South shining with redness incomparable This is our Tyre our Baâ—ilisk our red Poppy of the Rock our Adrop our Vsifur our red Lead our Lion devouring all things This is our true Light our Earth glorified rejoyce now for our King hath passed from death to life and now possesseth the Keys of both Death and Hell and over him nothing now hath power For like as Souls after pains tranâ—itory Be brought to Paradise where ever is joyful life So shall our Stone after his darkness in Purgatory Be purged and joyned in Elements withouten strife AS then it is with those who are Redeemed their Old man is crucified in which is sorrow anguish grief heart-breaking and many tears after that the New man is restored and then is joy shouting clapping of hands singing and the like for the ransomed of the Lord shall return with Songs and everlasting Joy shall be on their heads even so it is after a sort in our Operations for first of all our old Body dyeth rots and is as it were corrupted yielding a most loathsome stink and engendring squallid and filthy colours and most venomous exhalations which is as it were the Purgatory of this old Body in which its corruption is overcome by a long and gentle decoction And when it once is purged and made clean and pure then are the Elements joyned and are of four contraries made one perfect perpetual indissolvable unity so that from henceforth there is nothing but concord and amity to be found in all our habitations Rejoyce the whiteness and beauty of his Wife OUr Man then to shew his singular love to his Wife and to give an evident token that they will never fall out any more is content to attain the first degree of its perfection in her colour so that the first stable colour of thy renovate Body after its Eclipsation in blackness is the sparkling white which is a lustre hardly imaginable And
many into the East ascend c. In the Work are three Dimensions Altitude Latitude and Profundity The Altitude is the Perfection of the Bodies which is Inchoate in Whiteness and compleat in Redness The Profundity is the first Matter into which they are resolved For Multiplication and the Latitude is the means through which it passeth from its Perfection to be abased and from its abasement to its Glorification In this passage are infinite gay colours like unto those as appeared before Blackness but more glorious For note the Stone hath but three colours Black White and Red In the first when compleated it stays three or four days at most in the second as long in the last it reposeth it self for ever between these Periods as the Matter is moister or dryer purer or impurer many intermediate colours appear more then can be numbred But Two viz. Green and Yellow are of long continuance before the White and the Red But many colours appear between the beginning of that Work and the first colour of Blackness And although several colours appear yet are they dark foggy and foul coloured by which it appears that Blackness is the predominant which for a space will appear like the Aegyptian darkness and is much about the same continuance so between Blackness and the White although infinite colours appear yet the Basis of them being Whiteness they are bright and very glorious which being only transient pass and go and others come in their place until the White be perfected Position VIII The South or Redness is the complement of this Mastery OF this course in the South the Sun maketh Consummation After the White the Fire being continued the Compound will become Azure Gray and then Citrine which will last a long time and at last end in a bloody Redness Position IX He that supposeth his Work ended when the Stone is brought to its redness is mistaken BVt yet again Two times turn about thy Wheel c. The Stone being by constant and long Decoction brought to this pass he who thinketh the race quite run reckons without his Host and must reckon again It is Medicine of the first Order and must be brought to the third Order by Imbibitions and Cibation which is a second turning round the Wheel and by Fermentation which is a third turning round the Wheel and brings the Medicine to the third Order and makes it then fit for Projection which at first it is not For till the Medicine will flow like Wax it cannot enter Mercury before its flight but the Powder as it is made at first is like Grains or Atoms and is congealed in a far greater heat then will make ☿ to fume yet it abides in its from of Dust or Powder which must be otherwise before it be fitted for Projection therefore the Stone tingeth Mercury into a Metalline Mass in the twinkling of an eye as our Author saith in his Preface even as the Basilisk kills by sight But the Red Sulphur converteth Mercury by a digestion of time into its own Nature viz. Powder if it be joyn'd in a due proportion and digested in a due heat Therefore saith our Author if you give it too much it must have a Vomit or it will be sick too long but the Stone will never part with any Mercury that is joyned to it in heat our Sulphur then is a Royal Infant which doth both hunger and thirst and if you can but be a Nurse to it as you ought it will repay both your Pains and cost Leave not then where you should begin but go on till you bring it to the third Order which Reymond calls his Oyls and Unguents and so our Author likewise Three Properties there are in which the White and Red Sulphurs of the first Order differ from those of the third Order One flows as easily as any Wax in heat or on a hot Metal the other in a strong heat abides a Powder The one is like to Glass brittle ponderous and shining the other a powder like to Atoms The one enters Mercury like an Oyl and Coagulates it in an instant the other drinks up Mercury only as the Calx of a Metal would do but will not retain it if the Fire be increased strong nor turn it into Metal but if the heat and proportion be both as they ought by a digestion of Time it turns it into its own Nature And so as Ripley saith truly you may Multiply both White and Red with Mercury That if at first you had not enough to fill a spoon yet in short time you may be stored for your whole life were it ten times as long as it is like to be Position X. Our Stone must have a Specification to Metals before it will Project OVr Red Man teyneth not until he teyned be c. Our Red Man or King must be teyned by Ferment before it will tinge imperfect Metals the Ferments are only Sol and Luna the Proportion a fourth part to the Compound let the Sulphurs be and three parts of Sol or Luna according as the Sulphur is or four parts Sol and Luna and the Sulphur a fifth part then with Mercury digest and putrifie your Ferment and congeal it and again Ferment it till it flow like Wax or Oyl then will that Oyl fix Mercury and turn any Metal into Perfection which you may then Multiply at your pleasure or you may multiply it before Fermentation Then take the perfect Stone for your Body and mix him with the White Wife in proportion as at first and add the Spirit of Life as at first and digest it till it pass the three colours Black White and Red. Thus doth our Author conclude his Erroneous Experiments also I never saw true work but one saith he One he did but it was after infinite Errours and other work no Philosopher ever yet saw which he briefly describes Remember Man the most Noble Creature c. that is Gold It is an errour to write it Remember that Man is the most Noble Creature of Earthly Composition For Man is not of Earthly Composition but Stones Metals and Clays c. are Now because we seek the Noblest of Creatures of Earthly Composition we must be so wise as to take it for our Principle For as he saith else-where as Fire of burning the Principle is so the Principle of Gilding is Gold â—wis In this noblest Creature he saith are the four Elements proportioned by nature which makes it incombustible for were any predominant it would not abide but as Trevisan saith the Anatical proportioning the Elements in a metalline matter is the very form of Gold or that rather which gives it its form He adds a natural Mercuriality which costeth right nought that is a pure sincere Mineral Water without adulteration not Artificial out of Saturn Jupiter c. But natural not a dear Mercury but that which is common and cheap He adds one of his Minera's by Art is brought that is our