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
enter another Yea and beyond this it may be exalted beyond the nature of man yea and of any tangible Body to become a most radiant perpetual Light which I have seen though not my self actually made All this is done by the Divine virtue of our Water which is to be prepared as is said by Cohobation and Distillation for our Water is a living Water and not corrosive as many do mis-interpret our Books These then are the circumstantial qualities of our Water it is pure clean and very bright it is quick and very fluent without Humectation it is the only profitable subject that we can choose for this Art and whatever can be taken in hand in the World besides this is but fallacious It is a marvellous thing in kind And without it can nothing be done Therefore did Hermes call it his Wind For it is up-flying from Sun and Moon And maketh our Stone to fly with it soon Reviving the dead and giving life To Sun and Moon Husband and Wife IT is of a wonderful Composition yea so wonderful that if thou shouldst know it by relation only thou couldst not believe it Study therefore only to know it for it is the very hinge on which turns all perfection it is that which the Wise men never revealed but only in Figures and Metaphors Some have called it their sharp Vinegar because of its dissolvent quality others have called it a Bird a Goose a Phesant and many such names they have given it But because it ariseth in the form of a Wind or Vapour the Philosophers have called it their Vapour their Smoak and their Wind and for this cause command that the Porter keep diligent watch that it fly not away or exhale for it would spoil the Work This Water then flyeth the more Spiritual part of it and the Corporal part remaineth below in the form of an Humidity which doth bubble and boil continually and the smoak in the Head condenseth and returneth in drops upon the Body and by this means the Body of Sol which is most fixed to the astonishment of Nature is made volatile and sends out in the Exhalation of the Water its subtle fiery Soul Thus the dead Body hath infused into it a Spirit of life and begins to be endowed with a living Soul which moves aloft with the Spirit and returns with the same till the Body be wholly renewed And by this means the Body of the Sun retaining the more Corporeal part of the Water at the bottom they boil together and enter one another and so both by decoction become more and more Corporal and make together one Hermaphroditical Body of which the more fixed parts of the Sun and the grosser parts of the Water are the Component principals So that being thus mixed the more Corporal parts below and the more Spiritual parts in Sublimation the Bodily part is Husband and Wife to it self for all Conception is made at the bottom of the Vessel Which if they were not by craft made quick And their fatness with Water drawn out And so the thin dissevered from the thick Thou shouldest never bring this Work about If thou wilt therefore speed without doubt Raise up the Birds out of their Nest And after bring them again to rest THese Bodies do send forth a thin subtle fume which may be compared to their breath and the returning of it and fuming continually may be likened to the breathing in and out of Air for saith Artephius all things live by Air and so our Stone it is inspired by the Air which Air is the fume which ascends continually which partakes of both Natures as well as the Body below doth Also this makes that below to boil and swell continually which it would not do did not the Earth retain the moisture and the Sublimation carries with it the subtilest part or Soul of the Body which easily appears by its changing of colours for whatever coloureth is of Sulphur which is unctuous and therefore the Sublimation appears pinguous the medium of this Extraction is Water because our Water and the Sulphur are Homogeneal Wherefore in this Circulation there are two things to be considered the bottom and the top the bottom is not only the Body of Sol for so it would not stand liquid and flow and boil and bubble as it doth therefore it is certain that the Body retains part of the Water which is more thick which thickness digestion and mixture hath caused which grosser part of the Water is joyned with the Body but not perfectly united The uppermost part is not only from the Water nor yet the most whole of the Water but a certain subtle portion of your first Vinegar which hath in it the most pure part of your Gold which is sublimed with it which both together make a medium of much Firiness So then by reason of the mixture both the uppermost and the subsident part are reduced to a mean which hold one of another therefore our Body at this time and in this Operation is called the Body both of the Sun and Moon and the Vapour contains both the Soul of the Sun and the Spirit of the Mercury Take this for your prey for I have reveal'd what Philosophers upon penalty of an Anathema would never disclose If you have well attended to what I have said I have said enough and if this do not suffice you I know not what will Remember well what I have said if you ever expect success To sum up all therefore in one word for I have been so long that I fear I have been too prolix Remember what you go about and what you work on You take in hand an Earthly Body which you would bring to a Heavenly Tincture This you would effect by Mercury which is the only way or medium in the World First then sublime till by Mercury thou hast brought thy Body to the height of volatility and thou shalt find that in this dissolved Body there will be such a ferment which will recongeal the Spirit Water with Water accord will and ascend And Spirit with Spirit for they be both of one kind Which when they be exalted make to descend So shalt thou unloose that which Nature erst did bind Mercury essential turning into Wind Without which natural and subtle Separation May never be compleat profitable Generation FOr the Body though in its manifesto it be Sulphur congealed and dry yet in its occulto it is Mercury liquid and moist Now the Water which thou mixest with it hath this vertue to open its pores and then the Water of the Body will as naturally agree and ascend with thy Water of Life which thou didst put to it as one Water will joyn with another Now as Sol hath a hidden Spirit so hath our Mercury which is in it invisible for to sight it appears as other Mercury only a little brighter but in effect they differ wonderfully which Spirit will as naturally unite with the Soul
the more exactly thou mixest them the better and sooner will they work one upon another in heat Then set thy Glass in a Furnace made for thy Work and give a convenient Fire in which it may boyl night and day perpetually without a minutes ceasing order the Fire so that it may in 12 or 24 hours begin to boyl and from that hour not to cease boyling subliming ascending and descending until such time as the moisture be dried up and all remain below at least greatest part in form of a discontinuous Calx But manners there be of our Conjunction three The first is called by Philosophers diptative The which between Agent and Patient must be Male and Female Mercury and Sulphur vive Matter and Form thin and thick to thrive This Lesson will help thee without doubt And our Conjunction truly bring about NOw to help thee throughly in this mystery of Philosophical Conjunction I shall particularize all our Conjunctions We have particularly three Conjunctions all which must be known by him who intends to compleat this Mastery The first is gross which I touched before it is the Amalgamation of Sol with our Mercury which because the mixture is made of two things it is called Conjunction diptative and the Compound is now called Rebis that is two things according to the verse Res Rebis est Vina confecta In this mixture there are two Natures the one more active which is the Mercury the other more passive which is Gold where note that the activity of the Mercury above the Gold is because the moving virtue of Sol is sealed that is his Sulphur is imprisoned Otherwise when Dissolution is made Sol then is most active and Mercury more passive Mercury then is as it were the Feminine Sperm which being more crude and tender it is sooner wrought upon by the Fire which Sol the Masculine Sperm feels not till it be penetrated by the Mercury and then it is forced to send forth its Seed for the formal principle resides mostly in the Gold and the material chiefly in the Water in the one being thick of constitution the formal part is sealed in the other that little which is in respect of the Body is more at liberty and so by consequence sooner active These two then must be mixed ad justam exigentiam naturae as is elsewhere hinted and prosecuted largely To this if thou hast attended thou shalt know the extent and full Latitude of this Conjunction this is a manual work and the last manual work next to the putting and sealing of it in the Egg that thou hast before thou hast attained the first degree of the Mastery The second manner is called Triptative Which is a Conjunction of things three Of Body Soul and Spirit that they not strive Which Trinity thou must bring to Vnity THe next Conjunction that follows this in order is when thou hast so administred and regulated thy Fire that thy Spirits shall so ascend and circulate until they have extracted out of the fixed Body its most digested virtue or subtle Soul which is Sulphureous or of great Firiness Then shall the Spirit and Soul descend and shall unite it self with the Body then shall the Air be converted into Dust according to the process of noble Sandivogius where they shall lye contumulate for six weeks without breath and after when the Spirit of life shall enter into them the Spirit and Soul shall by their mighty force carry aloft the Body with them so that it shall go out and return with them for now these three are made one For as the Soul to the Spirit the bond must be Right so the Body the Soul to him must knit Out of thy mind let not this Lesson flit SO then by the mediation of the Soul the Spirit is made one and incorporate with the Body for the Soul being by the Spirit drawn from the Body doth naturally desire to be united with it again and so long as it is from it is from home as it were in a Pilgrimage The Body also naturally doth desire its Soul and will as forcibly attract it as a Loadstone doth attract Iron for know that the Soul doth not ascend but it carries with it a fermental Odour of the Body by which it doth so effectually affect the Spirit that it begins to think of taking a new impression and becomes daily by little and little more and more able to suffer Fire and by consequence draws to the nature of a Body observe this The third manner and also the last of all Four Elements together which joyns to abide Tetraptative certainly Philosophers do it call And specially Guido de Montanor whosâ— fame goeth wide And therefore in most laudable manner this tide BUt yet this Conjunction doth not retain the volatility of the Compound though it is so united that the parts ascend and descend together the reason is that though by the Soul the Spirit and Body be united yet the Spirit sometimes doth carry the Body with it aloft and the Body at times precipitates the Spirit the Soul holding fast together till at length not only these parts but the Elemental qualities of them are so strongly permixt that the one doth not more in acting then the other doth in resisting by which means they are not only united to follow one another but fixt to abide Fire together This is the last and noblest Conjunction in which all the mysteries of this Microcosm have their Consummation This is by the Wise called their Tetraptive Conjunction wherein the Quadrangle is reduced to a Circle in the which there is neither beginning nor end He who hath arrived here may sit down at Banquet with the Sun and Moon This is the so highly commended Stone of the Wise which is without all fear of corruption for here are by Nature all Elements Anatically mixed and united so that it cannot suffer from any for it agrees with all In our Conjunction four Elements must aggregate In due proportion which first asunder were separate THese our Elements are not such vain trifles which are idly imagined by Sophisters by the primary qualities to speak after the common phrase though I do not think that any thing attains perfection upon an account of qualities but so it pleased the Ancients to express themselves only this is most certain that what was before inconstant in the Fire now is impatible therein and what at first in the beginning of the Work discovered two distinct Natures is now one intirely and inseparably Therefore like as the Woman hath veins fifteen And the Man but five to the act of their fecundity Required in our Conjunction first I mean So must the Man his Son have of his Water three And nine his Wife which three to him must be Then like with like shall joy have for to dwell More of Conjunction me needeth not to tell OUr Stone is as it is called Microcosmos which name unless to our Stone hath been only
former Kingdom he Vnto his Brethren gives The worst of them doth now those Fortunes see That each in plenty lives And what their Brother was before his death That they are now become For he their sickness cures with his breath And makes them live at home No more in bondage bond 's no place can find All liberty enjoy There 's nothing here can hurt for all one mind Have all that would destroy Is banish'd from the Kingly Palace where The Streets with Gold are pav'd The Walls are Silver fine the Gates most clear Intire Gems engrav'd With wondrous Art the Windows glass most pure Which falls nor knocks can break The Drink from fear of venom still is sure Whoso virtue none can speak Whose comes there is at a place arriv'd Where neither want nor death Nor any grief is known a place contriv'd For Saints therein to breath Whom God shall choose and to his Palace bring What need he more desire Then God himself that he may praises sing Kindled with holy fire But he whose hands unclean and heart defil'd These Mysteries forbear For you th' are not cease timely for y' are wild T' have neither wit nor fear AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Fifth Gate Which is PUTREFACTION The Fifth Gate Opened Which is PUTREFACTION Now we begin the Chapter of Putrefaction Without which Pole no Seed can multiply Which must be done only by continual action Of heat in the Body moist not manually For Bodies else may not be altered naturally WE have already run through four Gates the first being opened the rest stand open at will so that thou hast need only to enter The course and method of Philosophers now doth lead us to the Gate of Putrefaction a horrible Gate whose entrance is dark with Cimmerian night dreadful with many windings and turnings And yet it is a Gate so necessary that unless you pass through it you may never expect to reap fruit from your labour for without it can be no Life nor Generation much less desired Multiplication therefore saith the Poet Felices atrum quotquot habere queant The cause of this death or corruption or rottenness proceeds from the action of continual heat not so much of the external Fire of the Athanor as of the Compound within it self in which the Fire of the Water which is against Nature doth open the perfect Body by continual contrition and decoction and so le ts loose its Sulphur that was incarcerate which is Fire of Nature that so between these two in continual action and passion together with the external heat continually acting the whole Compound is brought to corruption being sometimes roasted with external heat which doth sublime the moisture which again of its own accord returns continually and doth moisten the Earth so long until by reason of the heat it have drunk up the moisture wholly and then it dyes And unless thou see this sign of rotting of thy Compound which is done in a black colour a stinking odour and with a discontinuity of parts thy labour will still be in vain for thou mayst never expect what thou desirest to have a new form brought in till the old form be corrupted and put off Sith Christ doth witness without the Grain of Wheat Dye in the Ground increase thou mayst none get And in likewise without the Matter putrefie It may in no wise truly be alterate Neither thy Elements may be divided kindly Nor the Conjunction of them perfectly celebrate That therefore thy labour be not frustrate The privity of our putrefying well understand Or ever thou take this Work in hand THis is so constant to Natures constant proceedings that the painful Husbandman that he may have an increased Harvest commits his precious Seed to the Ground in it to rot and to be corrupted that so a new Life may spring from the old dead Body nor doth he ever expect increase so long as it remains in his Garner Right so we so long as our Material principles continue in their own nature and form they are but of a single value for Gold and Mercury are two such principles that they will for ever delude as many as proceed to work on them in a Sophistical way for whatever the Artist may think they will remain the same unto the end of the World unless pure Sol being mixed with its own pure and appropriated Mercury and set in a due heat of digestion there arise a mutual action and passion between them which without the laying on of the Artists hands will tend to a new Generation For in a convenient Fire in which the Compound may perpetually and uncessantly boyl and the subtle parts may ascend and circulate upon the gross without intermission the most digested Virtue or Soul of the fixed Body which is his basis of Tincture will be extracted by the Water and this will mix it self with the pure Spirit of the Water and with this it will ascend and return until a total separation be made of the pure from the impure and the subtle from the gross Then shall the Body draw down its Soul again and by the power of the most High it shall be united and with it the Spirit of life shall be joyned also so that all three shall become one with an union indissolvable but all this pre-supposeth a Putrefaction or Corruption of one form else cannot there be an Introduction of another Therefore since this mystery of Putrefaction is not more secret then necessary so necessary that without it there is nothing can be done to purpose that is to say with profit I shall be a little plain and full in the prosecution of this mystery For in the knowledge of this consists all that is required to make a Philosopher All the intentions of the Artist must be only so to prepare and order things that he may be sure of this terminus and when he is there come he is as sure a Master as if he had the Stone in his Cabinet By the failing of this sign the Operator is always to turn either backward to seek out some other principles or forward or to the right hand or to the left but when he is Master of this he then can fail in nothing but in the Regimen of the outward heat And Putrefaction may thus defined be After Philosophers definition to be of Bodies the slaying And in our Compound a division of things three The killed Bodies into Corruption forth leading And after unto Regeneration them ableing For things being in the Earth without doubt Be engendred of Rotation of the Heavens about THe definition that the Philosophers give of this Operation is perpetually Allegorical for this Gate they have named by all Metaphors almost in the World especially from death and dead men therefore they allegorize the Vessel in this station to Grave or Tomb and emblematically discover this Operation by the types of Skuls dead Bones and rotten Carcasses according to which Metaphors they call Putrefaction the
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
the Glass ought not to Sublime for that it must do uncessantly but the Fire that sublimes not is the Metalline love which is above and below and in all places alike Now then for a close to all that hath been said learn and be well advised what matter you take in hand for an evil Crow lays an evil Egg as the Proverb hath it Let thy Seed be pure and thy Matrix also pure then shalt thou see a Noble Off-spring Let the Fire without be such as in which our Confections may play to and fro uncessantly and this in a few days will produce that which thou most longest for the Crows Bill Continue then thy Decoction and in an hundred and thirty days thou shalt see the White Dove and in ninety days more the Sparkling Cherubim STAVE XII And these Two things be best he addeth anon For him that worketh the Alchymy to take Our Gold and our Silver therewith to make all one Wherefore I say who will our Pearl and Ruby make The said Principles look that he not forsake For at the beginning if the Principles be true And if so be by craft he can them also take In th' end truly his work he shall not rue THus come we to the last Conclusion which is that if a Mans Operations be Regular and his Principles true his end will be certain viz. the Mastery O Fools and Blind that do not consider how each thing in the world hath his proper Cause and Progress in Operation Think you if a Seaman should with a gallant Coach intend to Sail to any place beyond Sea he would not find his attempt to be foolish Or if with a Ship gallantly furnished he should Row at Random he may not sooner stumble on an infortunate Rock then arrive at the golden Coast Such fools are they who seek our secret in trivial matters and yet hope to find the Gold of Ophir For the more exact Guiding of your Practice take notice of these Twenty Rules following Rule I. Whatever any Sophister may suggest unto you or you may read in any Sophistical Author yet let none take you from this ground viz. That as the end you look for is Gold so let Gold be the subject on which you work and none other Rule II. Let none deceive you with telling you that our Gold is not common but Philosophical for common Gold is dead which is true But as we order it there is made a quickening of it as a grain of Corn in the Earth is quickened So then in our work after six Weeks Gold that was dead becomes quick living and spermatical and in our composition it may be called Our Gold because it is joyn'd with an Agent that will certainly quicken it So a Condemned Man is called a Dead Man though at present living Rule III. Besides Gold which is the Body or Male you must have another Sperm which is the Spirit and Soul or Female and this is Mercury in Flux and Form like to common Argent Vive yet more clean and pure There are many who instead of Mercury will have strange Waters or Liquors which they stile by the name of Philosophical Mercury Be not deceived by them for what a Man sows that he must look to reap If thou shalt sow thy Body in any Earth but that which is Metalline and Homogeneal to it thou shalt instead of a Metalline Elixir reap an unprofitable Calx which will be of no value Rule IV. Our Mercury is in substance one with common Argent Vive but far different in Form For it hath a Form Coelestial Fiery and of excellent Virtue and this is the Nature which it receives by our Artificial Preparation Rule V. The whole Secret of our Preparation is that thou take that Mineral which is next of kin to Gold and to Mercury Impregnate this with Volatile Gold which is found in the reins of Mars with this purifie your Mercury until seaven times are past then it is fitted for the Kings Bath Rule VI. Yet know that from seaven times to ten the Mercury is made better and better and is more active being by each Preparation acuated by our true Sulphur which if it exceed in number of Preparations becomes too fiery which instead of dissolving the Body will Coagulate it self Rule VII This Mercury thus acuated is after to be distilled in a Glass retort twice or thrice and that for this reason because some Atoms of the Body may be in it which were insensibly left in the Preparation of the Mercury afterwards it is to be cleansed well with Vinegar and Sal-armoniack then is it fit for the work Rule VIII Chuse your Gold for this work pure and clean from any mixture if it be not so when you buy it make it so by Purgation then let it be made fine either by Filing Malleating Calcining with Corrosives or any other way by which it may be made most subtile Rule IX Now come to your mixture in which take of the aforesaid Body so chosen and prepared one Ounce of Mercury as is above taught animated two Ounces or three at the most mix them in a Marble which may be warmed so hot as water will heat it grind both together till they be well incorporated then wash the mixture with Vinegar and Salt till it be very pure And lastly Dulcifie it with warm water and dry it carefully Rule X. Know now that whatever we say out of Envy our way is none other and we protest and will protest that neither We nor any of the Antients knew any other way for it is impossible that our secret can be wrought by any other Principles or any other disposition then this Our Sophism lies only in the two kinds of Fire in our work the Internal secret Fire which is Gods Instrument hath no qualities perceptible to man of that Fire we speak often and seem yet to speak of the External heat and hence arise among the unwary many Errours This is our Fire which is graduated for the External heat is almost linear all the work to the white work it is one without alteration save that in the seaven first days we keep the heat a little slack for certainty and security sake which an experienced Philosopher need not do But the Internal governing heat is insensibly graduated hourly and by how much that is daily vigorated by the continuance of Decoction the Colours are altered and the Compound maturated I have unfolded a main knot unto you take heed of being insnared here again Rule XI Then you must provide a Glass Tun in which you may perfect your work without which you could never do any thing Let it be either Oval or Spherical so big in reference to your Compound that it may hold about twelve times the quantity of it within its Sphere let your Glass be thick and strong clear and free of flaws with a neck about a Span or Foot long In this Egg put your matter sealing the
neck carefully without flaw or crack or hole for the least vent will let out the subtile Spirit and destroy the work You may know the exact Sealing of your Glass thus when it is cold put the neck where it is sealed into your mouth and suck strongly if there be the least vent you will draw out the Air that is in the Vial into your mouth which when you take the Glass from your mouth is again suckt into the Glass with a hissing so that your ear may perceive the noise this is an undoubted tryal Rule XII You must then provide your self with a Furnace by wise men called an Athanor in which you may accomplish your work nor will any one serve in your first work But such a one in which you may give a heat obscurely red at your pleasure or lesser and that in its highest degree of heat it may endure twelve hours at the least This if you would obtain Observe First that your nest be no bigger then to contain your dish with about an Inch vacancy at the side where the Vent-hole of your Athanor is for the Fire to play Secondly Let your Dish be no bigger then to hold one Glass with about an inch thickness of Ashes between the Glass and side remembring the word of the Philosopher One Glass One Thing One Furnace for such a Dish standing with the bottom level to the vent-hole which in such a Furnace ought to be but one about three Inches Diameter sloping upwards will with the stream of Flame which is always playing to the top of the Vessel and round about the bottom be kept always in a glowing heat Thirdly If your Dish be bigger your Furnace vent must be within a third part or a fourth as big as your Platter is Diameter else it cannot be exactly nor continually heated Fourthly If your Tower be above six Inches square at the Fire-place you are out of proportion and can never do rightly as to the point of heat For if you cause it if above that proportion to stream with flame the heat will be too big And if it stream not it will not be big enough or very hardly Fifthly Let the top of your Furnace be closed to an hole which may but just serve for casting in of Coals about three Inches Diameter or Square which will keep down the heat powerfully Rule XIII These things thus ordered set in your Glass with your matter and give Fire as Nature requires easie not too violent beginning there where Nature left Now know that Nature hath left your Materials in the Mineral Kingdom therefore though we take comparison from Vegetables and Animals Yet you must understand a Parallel in the Kingdom in which the Subject you would handle is placed As for Instance if I should Analogize between the Generation of a Man and the Vegetation of a Vegetable you must not understand as though the heat for one were to be measured by the other for we know that in the ground Vegetables will grow which is not without heat which they in the Earth feel even in the beginning of the Spring yet would not an Egg be hatched in that heat nor could a man feel any warmth but rather to him a numbing cold Since then you know that your work appertains all to the Mineral Kingdom you must know what heat is fit for Mineral Bodies and may be called a gentle heat and what violent First now consider where Nature leaves you not only in the Mineral Kingdom but in it to work on Gold and Mercury which are both incombustible Yet Mercury being tender will break all Vessels if the Fire be over extreme Therefore though it be incombustible and so no Fire can hurt it yet also it must be kept with the Male Sperm in one Glass which if the Fire be too big cannot be and by consequence the work cannot be accomplished So then from the degree of heat that will keep Lead or Tin constantly molten and higher so high as the Glass will endure without danger of breaking is a temperate heat and so you begin your degrees of heat according to the Kingdom in which Nature hath left you As then the highest degree of heat which the root of a Tree feels in the bowels of the Earth is not by far comparable to the lowest degree of heat an Animal hath So the highest degree of heat a Vegetable will endure without burning is too low for the first degree of Mineral heat as to our Work Rule XIV Know that all your progress in this Work is to ascend in Bus Nubi from the Moon up to the Sun that is in Nubibus or in Clouds Therefore I charge thee to sublime in a continual vapour that the Stone may take Air and live Rule XV. Nor is this enough but for to attain our permanent Tincture the water of our Lake must be boyled with the Ashes of Hermes Tree I charge thee then to boyl night and day without ceasing that in the troubles of the stormy Sea the Heavenly Nature may ascend and the Earthly descend For verily if we did not Boyl we would never name our work Decoction but Digestion For where the Spirits only Circulate silently and the Compound below moves not by an Ebullition that is only properly to be named Digestion Rule XVI Be not over hasty expecting Harvest too soon or the end soon after the beginning For if thou be patiently supported in the space of fifty days at the farthest thou shalt see the Crows Bill Many saith the Philosophers do imagine our Solution to be an easie work But how hard it is they can only tell who have tryed and made Experience Seest thou not a Grain of Corn sow it and after three days thou shalt only see it swell'd which being dry'd is the Corn it was before Yet thou canst not say it was not cast into its due Matriâ—x for the Earth is its true place but only it wanted its due time to Vegetate But things of an harder Kernel lie in the ground a far longer time as Nuts and â—lumb stones for each thing hath its season And this is a true sign of a natural Operation that it stays its season and is not Precipitate Dost think then that Gold the most solid Body in the world will change its Form in a short time Nay thou must wait and wait until about the 40 th day utter blackness beâ—â—ns to appear when thou seest that â—â—en conclude thy Body is destroy'd that 〈◊〉 made a living Soul and thy Spirit is â—ead that is Coagulated with the Body â—ut till this sign of Blackness both the â—old and the Mercury retain their Forms â—nd Natures Rule XVII Beware that thy Fire go not out no â—ot for a moment so as to let thy Matâ—er be cold for so Ruine of the Work â—ill certainly follow By what has been said thou mayst gaâ—â—er that all our work is nothing else â—ut an uncessant boyling of thy Comâ—â—ound
think that God bestows upon any of us what we enjoy for our own Merits but of his free Grace yet withal let me exhort any one who shall set his Studies this way to address himself to the Author and Fountain of Goodness for his help that he may have grace to honour God in the use of so great a Talent For I perswade my self that whomever God shall appoint to be Heir of such a Talent that he will give him a heart to improve it aright or else he will add to his Judgment for the abuse of so great a Blessing For whoever shall be wanton and dissolute and live without the fear of God what may he not do with such an Art unless God restrain him as certainly he will hiding this Secret from him or making it to him a snare and trap to betray his Life into the hands of covetous men of the World as many have found it by sad experience Therefore the Lord give both me and thee that grace that he may be continually before our Eyes The Alpha and Omega of our Thoughts Words and Actions Even so Amâ—n In the Beginning when thou madest all of nought a globous matter and dark under confusion by him the beginning c. FIrst then cast thine Eyes upon the Works of God and behold that work of his hands Consider how the glorious work of Creation was begun by him even by Christ for whose sake this very Science is communicated unto the Sons of Men as Bernardus Trevisan witnesseth who in his Epistle to Thomas of Bononia saith of this work That it is done Christi Gratia for Christs sake Consider how out of one Mass the Lord God by his powerful Command made all things to appear that are in Heaven or in Earth the heavenly Bodies with their Influences above and the earthly Matter below which by the Rotation of the Heavens produce all sublunary products through the word of his Mouth Above all which and in all which God is he is the Maker and the Lord of all above all blessed for ever who hath purchased to himself a People and redeemed them and they shall reign with him for ever and ever For as of one Mass was made all things right so in our practice must it be APply all this to the work of this Mastery Analogically and Allegorically for as the Lord made all the works which we see so he did lay them all under his powerful word of Command by which they continue to be what they are and are carried with an uniform motion to that first Pattern or Draught of things All our Secrets of one Image must spring AS then out of one mixed confused Mass all things had an actual existence according to their several kinds so out of one Image all these Secrets must flow Truth doth not consist in Heterogeneity but in Unity for God is one and his works uniform and the more Noble any thing is the nearer to Simplicity As in Philosophers Books whoso list to see TO this the Sentences of the Philosophers concur as many as have truly understood the Secret as Morien often and plentifully witnesseth Geber Trevisan and many others The thing is but one in kind though two in number and though more things are used yet till they be all brought to an oneness of Nature they are not fit to enter into this work Our Stone is called the Lesser World ANd therefore our Stone is resembled to Man who although he have a Wife different from him in Sex yet one with him in kind in which sence it is called the Microcosm or Less World for indeed next to Man who is the Image of God it is the true little System of the Great World I shall not particularize here how for in its place it will fall in seasonably One and Three THis Stone is also called Trine or Trinity in Vnity from the Homogeneity of the Matter as Trevisan saith Our Stone is made of one Root that is of two Mercurial Substances c. This Trinity is discerned in the Components for first there is the Body which is Sol and the Water of Mercury in which besides its Mercuriality there is a spiritual seed of Sulphur which is the secret Fire This is the Trinity these are called the Body the Soul and the Spirit the Body is the dead Earth which increaseth not without the celestial Vertue the Spirit is the Soul of our Air or Chameleon which is also of a two-fold composure yet made one inseparably the Soul is the Bond of Mercury without which our Fire never appears nor can appear for it is naked it inhabits the Fiery-Dragon and it yields his Soul to the true Saturnia and is embraced by it and both become one together bearing the stamp of the most High even the Oriental Lucifer the Son of the Morning This Soul is Chalyb's Magical Volatile and very tender the true Minera of Sol out of which Sol naturally proceeds which I my self know to be true and have spoken of it in my little Latin Treatise called Introitus apertus ad occlusum Regis palatium This is true Sulphur which is imbibed by the Mercuriality of Saturnia and notes it with the Regal Signet and being united and revived into a Mineral Water by the Mediation of Diana's Doves it is the sharp Spirit which in the Water moves the Body to putrefie Thus is the Trinity proportionable to wit three Natures in the first Mixture the Work is carried an end to perfect Complement distinctly according to the Vertue of a Body Soul and Spirit for the Body would be never penetrative were it not for the Spirit nor would the Spirit be permanent in its super-perfect Tincture were it not for the Body nor could these two act one upon another without the Soul for the Spirit is an invisible thing nor doth it ever appear without another Garment which Garment is the Soul In this it exerciseth its vertue this Soul as it is drawn from the Saturnia solid and dry is named our Air or rather the Chameleon which is an airy Body changing its hue according to every Object it beholds so our Air is of an astonishing Nature out of which I know all Metals may be drawn yea even Sol and Luna without the Transmuting Elixir of which in my little Latine Treatise which was the Congest of mine own experience I spake fully This Air being dissolved into Water Mineral hath in it two of our Trinity united so really that in a short digestion the spiritual inhabiting invisible Sulphur will without addition congeal the Mercury in which it is and make a visible congelated substance of Luna and then Sol. Thus this Trinity is indeed Vnity one being Gold mature fixt and digested in act the other Gold volatile white and crude yet in posse to be made most fixt and solid by naked digestion It is not then a delusion that Philosophers speak and write for trust me Viderunt nudam sine
caused to run these Springs make but one Well whose Waters appear dry the humidity being sealed the Well it self is surrounded with an Arsenical Wall the slimy bottom abounds with the First Ens of Mineral Salt and Sulphur which acuate the Water of the first Well whose primary quality is Coldness being thus acuated it becomes so powerful a Menstruum and so pleasant to the Metals that for its peculiar Vertue it is chosen for to be the Bath of the Sun and Moon For I will truely now thee excite to understand well Mercuries three BUt because one Book never is sufficient in this Mastery to discover all that is to be known and other Authors write variously of Mercury Attend further what I have to say to thee concerning this point We have in our work properly three Mercuries of which one is to be by the Philosopher prepared of which I have spoken and this being joynd with the perfect Body and set to digest the Glass is shut and then in this first Composition is the Matter called Rebis that is two things to wit in Number for you may yet separate each from other in its intire nature These two being joyned do operate so within the Vessel till the Compound become a black Powder which is then called the Ashes of the Platter This Powder relenteth into a black Broth which is called Elixir or Water extracted by Elixation which is reiterate Liquefaction This Elixir is divided into a more subtile part which is called Azoth and the grosser part is called Leton which is by Azoth washed and whitened In Rebis the Matters are confused in Elixir they are divided and in Azoth they are conjoyned with an inseparable union The Keys which of this Science be THese Menstruums or Mercuries are the very Keys of this Science The first is the Philosophers Key the other two are Natures Keys Reymund his Menstrues doth them call THey are called by the wise men Menstrues in three respects first for the secresie of them as those Lunary Tributes of Women are hid from common view so these Mercuries from vulgar Searchers Secondly for the Prognosticks of them as those in Women betoken maturity to conceive so these are called Menstrues because they are fit for procreation Thirdly in regard of the office of them as those in Women are accounted nutritive for the Embrion so our Child is nourished by these to perfect age and strength Let me add a fourth reason and that is in respect of the time the Philosophical Preparation will hardly give thee thy first Menstruum fit for thy use in less than a month And after conjunction thy first Menstruum will begin to hold of the nature of the Body in another month and then thou shalt see a show of the second Menstruum but wait till another month and thou shalt see thy second Menstruum compleat then yet wait a third month and thou shalt see a show of the third Menstruum which in the fourth month will perfectly exuberate and then with it thou shalt soon see perfected Sulphur of Nature for it is Fire of Nature and in this first Exaltation is the white Stone perfected Without them truly no Truth is done HE then that knoweth not the Secret of our Menstruals let him forbear the practice of the Work for verily he may expect nothing but a sophistical Delusion instead of the true Work of Nature He is like a man that would enter an inaccessable Castle without a Key or shoot in a Bow without a string But two of them be superficial NOw that you may know our Secrets exactly we shall faithfully discover unto you our Experience as cordially as a Brother may declare to a Brother and shall reveal what I never found yet revealed in any Author There are in our Mercury three Mercurial Substances which may well be called Menstrues the one the more gross part which though it be a Water yet it being the most palpable part and visible may be termed the Body of the Water the last is a Fiery Form which is the Blood of Cadmus this is a real invisible form which is essentially and formally Sol Volatile the second is the mean Soul which Philosophers without Equivocation call Saturn's Child the middle substance of these three are made into one wonderful Mercury which hath not its like in the world Now for the superficiality of the two first Menstrues or Mercuries and the essentiality of the third know and understand for our speech will be very mysterious Know I say what it is to be superficial and what essential Essence you know is invisible and more formal then material which doth actuate the matter and ripens it but that which is superficial is visible and may be seen and is more material and passive Now those two first which are superficial are the Water and the Blood the essential Menstrue is the Spirit which all are in one yet distinguished in number though not in kind The third Essential to Sun and Moon SO then two are material passive substances which are united in our sophical Mercury the third is an active essence which is hid in our Mercury which is essential to Sun and Moon because it is a Fire which is Sol volatile and as the Artist may govern this Mercury it will digest the passive Principles either into Sol or Luna at the Philosophers pleasure Their Properties I will declare right soon I Shall by and by in its place describe to you all the Properties of these three Menstrues when I come to it in the mean time take notice that by this Mercury in which are three Mercuries or Menstrues the perfect Bodies will be calcined and then dissolved into Mercury which is not then so properly called a Menstrue for it is the Fruit it self called Azoth or Virgins Milk which is a digestion beyond the Menstrues And Mercury of Metals essential Is the Principle of our Stone material THe Bodies when they are dissolved do transmute the foresaid Mercuries by their own ferment into their own nature for the Fire of Nature assimilates all that nourisheth it to its own likeness and then our Mercury or Menstrue vanisheth that is it is swallowed up in the Solary Nature and all together make but one universal Mercury by intimate union and this Mercury is the material Principle of the Stone for before our Mercury as it was compounded of three Mercuries had in it two which were superficial and the third essential to Sol and Luna only not to the Stone for Nature would produce these two out of it by artificial decoction but when the perfect Bodies are dissolved they transmute the Mercury that dissolved it and then there is no more repugnancy in it then is there no longer a distinction between superficial and essential but all is become essential And this is that one matter of the Stone â—hat one thing which is the subject of all Wonders In Sol and Luna our Menstrues are not seen WHen
thou art come to this then shalt thou no more discern a distinction between the Dissolver and the Dissolved for the Water shall neither ascend nor descend go out nor in alone but the Fire of Nature shall accompany it and the colour of the mature Sulphur which is unseparably joyned shall tincture thy Water It appeareth not but by effect to sight SO that thou shalt never see them severed one from the other but shalt discern them by the effect and by the eye of thy mind more then of thy body Therefore saith the Philosopher Azoth and Fire are sufficient for thee in the middle and end but not in the beginning for then they are not our Mercury that is our universally united Mercury But in the first days of the Stone there appear four Elements of which three are in the Mercury sublimed and one in Sol which is counted all for Earth till it be dissolved and then it fermenteth the Mercury and makes the three qualities of it which it hath drawn from three substances to unite into one Mercury which hath all in it one essential property and that is Solary which first will shew the Moon in the full and is the true one matter of all our Secrets our one Image out of which springs white and red not bare Sol and Luna as will spring out of our Mercury which we prepare with our hands but the white and red Elixirs which shew that this Mercury which Nature hath made in the Glass without our help is far beyond that Mercury which we prepared with a laborious toil This is the Stone of which we mean Who so our Writings conceiveth aright ANd verily he that hath well studied our Books shall understand that this general one Mercury which we call Azoth is indeed our Stone which wanteth only digestion for it is inseparably united not in a Dyprative Conjunction which is barely a mixture of the Sun with our Mercury or Triptative which is a mixture and union of the Body Soul and Spirit which is before Putrefaction but Tetraptive which is the Anatization of qualities which is the first degree of the white Stone which will then grow higher and higher till the Moon come up to the full It is a Soul and Substance bright THis Stone or Virtue multiplicative is not in relation to the matter but the form which doth make the matter to receive and after impress Tinctures for who could believe that Sol in which the virtue is but unary I mean only sufficient for it self should by the addition of our Mercury which in reference to its material parts is below the degree of Sol and needs digestion and that only to maturate it to the height of Sol I say that by the mixture of those two Venerial Tinctures should be multiplied in a manner infinitely Of Sol and Luna a subtile Influence WEre it not that this Tincture which in the Mercury is Sol and Luna were as a Soul that is a spiritual thing it were impossible it is therefore the very Dos faecunditatis which is in Minerals which doth appear in their Lunary and Solary Tinctures which was put and planted on and in them in the first Benediction of Crescite Multiplicamini which increasing is in some things juxta quantitatem This is in quality Whereby the Earth receiveth resplendence SO then the matter of Minerals is a dead passive thing in which there is included a Light which is cloathed vitali Aura aetheria as I may speak this form of Light is it which doth actuate and specificate or determine the matter and this splendor or Light is in all Metals Sol or Luna which are conspicuous more eminently in those two perfect Bodies Gold and Silver but are in other Mineral Bodies more Clouded and Eclipsed with an earthly faeculent interposition between the fulgor and the superfluities which is the Imperfection of such Bodies and is accompanied with a rawness and inconstancy in the Fire the Impure carrying away the Pure For what is Sol and Luna saith Avicen But Earth which is pure White Red SO then Sol and Luna is more formal then material for the matter is a gross Terrene Substance but the form of Light purifying the Substance is a most subtile spiritual thing which doth ennoble the grossness of the matter by a Fire-abiding Tincture Take from it the said Clearness and then That Earth will stand but in little stead BUt if this Tincture could be separated from the pondus of the matter the remainder would be an unprofitable Terrestriety Our work therefore is for to advance this Light by exaltation in the matter which as it in its simplicity is but in unity so it may be brought to a Virtue millenary and gradually so exalted that the matter would seem to be quite swallowed up of the form and yet in this exaltation it is not the moles or pondus that is the Solary or Lunary Virtue but a Light whose multiplication is not in the increase of pondus but in the circulation of Natures till the Heavenly illuminate the Earthly with an immediate Beam all interposition being removed out of the way The whole Compound is called our Lead FOr to attain this admirable multiplication Philosophers have found out a most subtile yet very natural Composition which hath been not a little sought for by many this the wise Antients both to describe the Fountain of these Mysteries as also to hide the Secret from the unworthy have mystically called their Lead The quality of Clearness from Sol and Luna doth come THis Lead so called from the appearing baseness of its original is notwithstanding of an admirable power for it contains the Bath for Sol and Luna that is the Sun and Moon enter into it and send out their Tinctures into it which it receiveth and like to a fertile Soil ennobleth it an hundred and an hundred fold These are our Menstrues both all and some THus have I in general given you a description of our Menstrues which are three Acetum Elixir and Azoth which I shall now particularly describe Bodies with the first we Calcine naturally perfect THe first Menstrue we call our sharp Vinegar with infinite other names which it will be tedious for to recite and with this is made our Magical Solution of Sol this saith Sendivogius is Menstruum mundi in sphaera Lunae toties rectificatum ut possit calcinare Solem. In this saith the noble Author of the Hermetical Arcanum is made Eclipsis Solis Lunae in Cauda Draconis this is as Artephiâ—â— saith the only Instrument in the World for our Art for it causeth the Sun to putrefie that is it loseth its hard compaction and makes it to be an impalpable Powder as saith the truth-telling Flammel In this Calcination as all Authors testifie and our own Experience hath taught us Natures are united Colours are mingled and one holds of the other and this is the period of the first Menstruum which ends in
seeking that in many things which is verily but in one thing for in all the world there is not any one subject but this Ripley after the Rehearsal of all his Errors tells you That he never saw true Work but one And Geber Exacte inquit singula sumus experti idque probatis rationibus nihil invenimus praeter solum unctuosam humiditatem penetrantem tingentem c. And Artephius saith There is no other subject in the World for this Art naming it although in a Philosophick manner wonderous subtilly I counsel thee with Ripley to learn to know this one thing which I have faithfully declared and I know what I have declared experimentally to be true He that understands me will have cause to thank God and me for what Light I have given to Ripley He that with me understands Ripley will easily discern With the second which is an humidity Vegetable reviving what earst was dead OUr second Water or Menstruum or Fire is our Elixir which is an Elixation of our Matters or drawing forth the Tincture out of our dissolved Bodies which doth cause our dead Body to rise and to spring forth in Sprigs and Branches like to the tender Grass in the Spring out of the Field and this so long until an intire Triptative Union be made of Body Soul and Spirit In this operation our Body of the Sun hath its dead moles turned into a living quick active Spirit and our Compound after death begins to sprout and to shew its true Vegetative nature it is indowed with a green Colour which is the sign of the growth of all things Both Principles Materials must loosed be HEre your Natures are changed and hold one of another and become one inseparably that is the Solary Nature is not to be divided from the Mercury nor the Fire from the Water but with one the other is always moved and so though there yet be a superius and an â—nferius an ascendens and subsidens yet now quod est superius est sicut id quod est inferius And Formals else they stand in little stead NOw between the two Extreams of Mercury and Sulphur you have a marvellous medium ingendered now the form of Gold is taken quite away and it hath at present an accidental imperfect form which is the mean through which it passeth to its transcendent perfection These Menstrues therefore know I thee reed LAbour with all thy might to attain the skill of these two first Menstruums Theoretically and Practically the first is to be by thee prepared and proportioned in the beginning before thou attempt any thing When thou hast the true Nymphs Bath then joyn this Spouse with her beloved Husband and see if she will make his Body fall to sunder in impalpable Atoms Then let Saturn be thy Chamberlain and let him gather together these dissevered members and of them make one broth in which is blackness compleat after which followeth greenness and then shalt thou know that thy Compound is by the living God endowed with a vegetable Soul Without the which neither true Calcination Done may be nor true Dissolution HE who knoweth not the Mystery of these two Menstrues can never attain either to Calcination or Dissolution of the Philosophers The Mystery of the first consists in the acuating of thy Vinegar with the Blood of our Green Lyon and the Soul of the Fiery Dragon which is by seven Eagles which are seven Cohobations and Depurations of thy feminine Sperm till it conceive a spiritual seed or true natural heat to animate thy young King The Mystery of the second Menstrue consists in the true proportion of thy first Water with its own Body and the administration of true heat external by which the combat between the Eagles and the Lyon may be stirred up thus shall the Duel be ended the Lyon rent in pieces and the Carrion of its Carcass shall kill the Eagles and out of these Atoms shall the second Water be made apparent by Dissolution With the third Humidity most permanent THe third Menstrue is by Artephius called the second Water for our second he doth joyn together with the first although where he doth particularize the three Fires he doth then distinguish three Menstruums The like course many Philosophers have used in the description of their Operations some omitting the first or at least confounding it with the second for the greater obscuring of the Art But we have beyond what any have hitherto performed particularly insisted upon the three in order and have taken more pains in the discovery of the first because the wise Ancients have taken such pains to conceal that most and after that we have made an orderly proceeding to the second which we have in like sort handled and this being performed we do now address our selves to the third This is called by Ripley a most permanent Humidity and note by the way that the first Water is called by Authors a permanent Water likewise but take notice that there is a different reason for each denomination for first of all all Mercury is Water permanent that is the parts have no Heterogeneity they will not leave one another in the examen of the Fire but either all flyes and is unconstant or else all abides and is constant in the tryal of Vulcan and so is our first Menstruum And in this our Mercury and Common Mercury agree besides the identity of matter for it is the form only that distinguisheth them But in the next place our Water is permanent with the Body which Common Mercury is not that is it by digestion doth unite not only adhere to it so that both together do make one Individuum which is done by our secret Conjunction But lastly when the Body is thus by our Water reduced at last it comes that the four Elements are united in this Water After Putrefaction and Purification which is the last most laudable Tetraptive Conjunction and now the Tincture is the Spirit and the Spirit is the Soul and the Soul is the Body and all these are one Incombustible and unctuous in his Nature THis is our true Incombustible Mercury for it is totally purged from all its burning faeculency Gold though it be a pure Metal in respect of others which are imperfect yet compared with our Stone it hath also its faeces but this when it is taken away by Putrefaction and Ablution then becomes a total separation of what is precious from what is vile and as the Philosopher well saith In the troubles of this our stormy Sea all that is pure will ascend and all that is impure descend and will abide in the bottom of the Vessel in the form of a combust Earth then is made the new Heaven and the new Earth pray to God then that thou mayst see when there shall be no more Sea Yet I say before thou hast this final Inceration thou hast this most incombustible Menstruum and most permanent in which Nature and
Art have conspired and made a Purification beyond what Nature alone could ever have brought to pass Therefore this Mercury though it be liquid and in the form of Mercury it is notwithstanding Unctuous that is great with Child which Child is Sulphur which Sulphur it will in the end bring forth and shall then be sealed up in the belly of this Infant which is when all is fixed and Mercury is then hidden under the fixity of Sulphur Hermes Tree unto Ashes is burnt IT doth therefore naturally incline it self unto Inceration for Earth is the Nurse of our Stone and in it is its virtue attained and its perfection intire according to noble Hermes in his Smaragdine Table Vis saith he ejus est integra si versa fuerit in terram By vertue of this third permanent pure incombustible Water thou shalt at last attain a total Inceration for this Water though it be wholly Mercurial to sight yet hath it in its own Bowels its own Sulphur nay it is all Sulphur and that all incombustible This work is called the burning of Hermes Tree to Ashes which is done thrice first into a black unctuous Calx as impalpable as Atoms which are only to be discerned in the Sun-beams secondly into a fine white Calx in which is the Moon in the full the third a red Calx in which the Sun is Orient Now know that the first Calcination is from the vertue of the Sun in which the Sun seeks to rise but by reason of the equal opposition it finds from the water it is beclouded and after through the interposition of the Earth totally Eclipsed This Fire therefore because of the mixture of it with the natural Fire of Sol which is in it dissolved is called unnatural the first Fire of our Water is called Fire against nature and the Fire of the Sulphur of the perfect Body is called Fire of nature In this operation through the power and will of the Almighty the Body which hath been so long dead is by this Water quickned and actually sprouts like to a Vegetable for when the pores of it are opened by the moistning of our Water it straight begins to follow the Spirit upon the Fire the Spirit then doth mount aloft which the Body thus made tender cannot follow but as the Poet saith non passibus aequis as a Son that is little followeth his Father It therefore in a token of its friendship with the Water doth bud forth like to the tender Frost upon the surface of the Earth and retains a quantity of the Water with it self occupying a middle room between the bottom and the top in which respects the Philosophers have called it their Soul which to shew its union to the Body riseth no higher then it can have a root or Basis below and to manifest its love to the Spirit it doth as it were climb after it higheâ— and higher for its season until at length it return from whence it came And verily this Soul is the Magnetical Medium between the Spirit and the Body which doth desire the Spirit as its true drink and therefore as it grows dry it doth attract the greater drops of sweat which falling to the Earth arise in a pleasant fume and do moisten the growing virtue with a pleasant dew by reason of which it grows every day more and more This Tree of ours some have compared to one thing and some to another some to a Cypress or Fir-Tree which indeed may seem to resemble it others to Haw-Thorn Trees as Ripley in his Gate of Cibation others to Shrubs and Bushes others to thick Woods and in these Woods saith Lambsprint there is a Beast all over black I confess there is a similitude between our Germination and all these others because of the Humidity of the Compound which is ever and anon returning by drops have likened it to a moorish low Bog in which Rushes grow and Toads keep others have called it their Coral which is indeed the fittest comparison for in our Tree there are Shoots and Sprigs without any thing that may be properly likened to Leaves as then Coral is an union of a Vegetable and a Stony nature so is it in our Tree for Stones and Minerals are of one Imposition our Tree is Metalline and yet through the power of God it seems to Vegetate 2ly Coral grows under the water where one would think no Vegetable could grow ours also grows in a heat in which no Vegetable but it self can grow 3ly Coral hath many Sprigs and Branches without Leaves so is our Tree 4ly Coral as it is under water hath a most exquisite biting tast which in the Air it quickly loseth so our Stone or Tree Metalline in its place is of a pontique fiery nature but taken out it in a short space loseth the same irrecoverably 5ly There are five sorts of Coral the common Gray the Milk White the Green the Bloud Red and the Black so our Tree is at his periods of all these colours and in this form which Tree by the heat of the Fire is dryed to a Calx which is called the Ashes of Hermes Tree Lastly Coral is more heavy then any other Vegetable and so is our Tree beyond all Vegetables yea and Coral it self in ponderosity It was not therefore a fortuitous comparison that Philosophers named their Mastery the Tree of the Hesperides nor is it in vain that they bring in Jason pouring Broth at the Root of it to attain the Mastery for verily â—he wise Philosopher noted by Jason â—o governing his Fire that the Lunaria or Water of the Moon may return to the Earth in which these Trees grow the Earth will at length be so dryed by the â—eat of the Sun that it shall afford the Tree no more moisture then shall the Tree it self be calcined by the prevailing â—eat into a Powder impalpable first black then white then red Therefore â—s our little Glass by Flammel in his Summary named the Philosophers Garden in which the Sun riseth and setteth and the Philosophers Tree is moistned with the dew of Heaven day and night without â—ntermission It is our natural Fire most sure THis Mercury drawn out of the Sun is the true natural heat in the acuaâ—ing and stirring up of which is the whole secret of the Mastery this is the honoured Salt when this is made to appear thy operations will be so admirable that they will take up thy whole worldly content and with their variety the time will seem so short that thou wilt not take notice of any tediousness in the passing of it Our Mercury our Sulphur our Tincture pure THis is our Mercury which cannot be attained with money which is nothing but Sulphur and Sulphur which is nothing but Tincture in which all Elements are proportioned perfectly Our Soul our Stone born up with wind In the Earth ingendred Bear this in mind THis is our Body which is now become all Soul and all Spirit all the
moisture and the moisture of the Water uniting the Sulphur of the Sun and the Sulphur of the Water and the Mercury of the Sun and the Mercury of the Water and the united Sulphur prevailing over the united Humidity rotting it into powder as small as Atoms black of the blackest black thou shalt then see a total mixture of Seeds and death of thy Compound This rotting will begin about the 42 46 or 50 th day and the signs of it are the Fumes will not ascend but the Matter will boil at the bottom of the Glass like to melted Pitch boiling and bubbling swelling and puffing in a black colour every day blacker and blacker shewing changable rotting colours in its boiling This will continue till it be so thick that it boil not but grow hard and swell yet it will vary often and appear sometimes as though dry and sometimes a little moisture will appear with fresh bubbling but no Fumes And this will last about 46 days no Fumes rising at all so that about the 84 th or 90 th day after thy Matters begin to be boiled in a continual decoction Putrefaction will be compleat and then Sublimation or Circulation will begin again which in 46 or 50 days will end in a white Dove This first token of blackness proclaims thee a Master after which thou canst not well miss unless thou wilt This is the astonishment of Art to make Gold volatile which was so fixed be patient then and boyl continually till your Gold begin to dissolve and come upon the Water like a Cream Then continue your decoction till the colour begin to change into an imperfect Citrine with moisture and send up yellowish vapours This Citrine will soon be mixed with a blewish black and yet continue the decoction till the Clouds begin to rise and a dark mist then continue your boyling till breath fail that is the Clouds and Fumes arise no more then the Compound boyl at the bottom without Fumes and will shew dark obscure reddish yellowish blewish gray and blackish colours then continue your decoction till the Body and whole Compound begin to rot into Atoms which the 50 th day will give you a Harbinger or fore-runner of with Pitchy blackness then know that all is thorowly mingled together and will never cease till the damned Earth come the Earth of Leaves which is a dust impalpable The Head of the Crow that token call we And some do call it the Crows Bill Some call it the Ashes of Hermes Tree And thus they name it after their will Our Toad of the Earth which eateth his fill Some call it by what it is mortificate Our Spirit with Venom intoxicate But it hath names I say to thee infinite For after each thing that blackness is to sight Named it is till time it waxeth white Then hath it names of more delight After all things that been full white And the red likewise after the same After all read things doth take the name At the first Gate c. THis token then is called the Crow the Crow's Head and the Crow's Bill for it is a shining blackness like unto Printers Ink or a solid Coal new broken or the most black and compacted broken Pitch Others name it the Ashes of Hermes Tree for it is Ashes out of which grows a Tree afterwards beautiful and glorious with Sprigs and Branches and changable colours And indeed this liberty the Philosophers have taken to call it what they list they call it their Toad which crawleth on the ground and feedeth upon the slime of the Earth because before it is quite black it may â—â—semble the colours of a Toad and its likeness pusfing and swelling and rugged with bunches and blisters and knobs Others call it a Spirit killed with its own deadly poison that is Mercury dissolving Gold in which dissolved Body which then seems a Spirit there is a hidden ferment which may recongeal the same this fermental virtue it is that doth coagulate or thicken the Water that to the wonder of the Beholders what before was thinner and thinner doth after 40 days thicken till it come to a dust or powder like to impalpable Atoms But I shall not insist upon these denominations there being so many given to it by the Envious that there is nothing almost in the World that is black or may be made black by the Fire but they have named it by it Also whatever is filthy or faeculent or unsavoury either to taste or smell they have Allusively called their Stone by in reference to its first putridness or corruption So likewise when by continuance of decoction the colour changeth to white they then call it their Swan their Dove their white Stone of Paradise their white Gold their Alablaster their white Smoak and in a word whatever is white they do call it by And so the Red they name their Vermilion their red Lead their Poppy of the Rock their Tyre their Basilisk their red Lion and in sum it borrows the names of all red things Now thou art entred the first five Gates of the Philosophers Castle for do not believe but that Calcination is verily Putrefaction and is done by Dissolution Separation and Conjunction as if thou hast attended this discourse thou mayst easily conceive only here is the Sophism after this total Calcination there is a relenting again for as I said before our Operation is but turning as it were of a Wheel which runs one half of its circulation directly backwards to its first progress Thou sublimest so long till the Body is made as volatile as it may be this is the activity of the Spirit then thou congealest so long till all appear like Atoms and then is thy bodily virtue active and thy Spirit passive then thy Spirit begins to be active again and thy Compound which was apparently fixed relents again and distils as before till it come to its height again of volatility which is again a Separation then is celebrated again a Conjunction Tetraptive and from that time all ascends and descends together and there is such an union that there doth not then as at first exhale a quick Fume and descend upon the bodily Moles but all ascends like to a glorious Tree with branches and is not sublimed to the top but sprouts up like the tender Forst in a fair morning which falls and rises till all become a Powder impalpable So then after Calcination is again a Solution and that divides between Azoth and Laton and a distilling Separation in which Azoth washeth Laton and after that a Conjunction not of the four Elemental qualities only which was in the first Conjunction but of the Elements themselves the Body Soul and Spirit and then is made another Calcination into a white Calx which by continual decoction relents again and is made volatile again for our Wheel goes round and when it is come thither whence it set forth it begins again Thus is made a third Solution Sublimation
and Calcination into a red Elixir which is the Sabboth of Nature and Art at which being arrived there is no farther progress without a new Marriage either by Ferment or otherwise according to the rule of Nature and Art so that indeed all our work is three Rotations and every Rotation hath three Members Solution Sublimation and Calcination The first Solution is called Inceration and Reduction or Liquefaction the second properly Solution the third Inceration The first Sublimation is called Distillation Ascension and Descension the second Separation and Ablution the third Exaltation and Sublimation The First Calcination is called Calcination and Conjunction Triptative Putrefaction c. The second Congelation Albification and Fixation the Third Illumination c. only remember thou in thy first Calcination attainest compleat Putrefaction in the second the compleat white Elixir and in the third the compleat Red. This I premise to undeceive thee that thou mayst not think to have a Calcination first a Dissolution next a Separation thirdly a Conjunction fourthly a Putrefaction fifthly c. No verily when thou first puttest thy Matters into the Vessel in the first day of thy Operation thou givest a Fire in which thy Compound boileth swelleth and puffeth visibly and drops run down in veins off from the Convex of thy Glass for in this Mercury thy Gold will beyond the nature of any other Mercury flow in the Fire as if the whole was Mercury and boyl visibly which must never cease not a moment for it brings imminent damage In the first days of your boyling which is accompanied with a constant ascending and return of Fumes your Compound grows more and more liquid now and then a skin appearing in the form of a distinguishable though not very observable whiteness At length a yellowish colour will appear less at first and more afterwards distinguishable both in the boyling Compound below and in the Fumes above and when thou seest thy Glass as if it were all over gilded where the Fumes ascend with a blewness then know that thy Man and Wife do mix their Seeds then shall an obscure greenness pass and continue a season then shall thy Fumes diminish and at length be none at all and the Compound shall boyl and swell in the bottom of the Glass After that the more you boyl your Compound will be the more black coming at last to the temper of melted Pitch for colour and bubbling which shall rot with obscure colours untill it come to the period of Putrefaction which is a most exquisitely subtle black unctuous Powder which about the 84 th or 90 th day in a good decoction will be compleat Take heed now for I shall not make such another particular Systeme of the Work in all my Writings When the fulness of compleat Calcination is perfect then will the parts begin to liquefie together again and you then shall see Vapours begin to arise again first like to a Smoak which will after return in drops condensing on the Vessel sides which believe me is a gallant sight for in this Operation as blackness by little wears away such colours will appear which thou canst not imagine that thou wilt steal from Natures due to satisfie thine eyes in the beholding of it when thou shouldest sleep This Circulation with infinite variety of colours will last between 20 and 30 days and then thou shalt see thy Matter appear pretty white which then will grow whiter and whiter till it become like a glittering Sword in the Sun-beams trust me for I have seen this shining sparkling white which yet will be quick like a most glorious Heaven-born Mercury the subject of wonders Then shall these Fumes begin to cease and thou shalt see a Congelation like to the sparkling twinkling eyes of Fishes which moving uncessantly on the Fire will glitter incomparably and wonderfully and thickning more and more it will sprout like the tender Frost in a most amiable lustre and in 25 days shalt thou have it a most impalpable undiscernable Powder Now thou needest no farther instruction only this let me tell you that the continuing your Glass in the Fire and increasing it discreetly this white will relent again and change into a perfect green and will again circulate and become perfect Azure and at the length thicken and in the end become after a long Citrinity in a moment a sparkling red pure impalpable Powder Understand this well and you will not be amazed any longer with the distinction of our Operations which is but Solution which contains Separation or Sublimation and Volatization and Coagulation which contains Conjunction Calcination and Fixation and all is but a successive action and passion of Gold the Body and his qualities and Mercury the Soul and its qualities between which intercedes a Spirit of Life which carries them up and down like a Wheel which turns till it returns thither whence it proceeded and then begins again and turns so long till it finds its rest which is in the Fiery Cathedra the red of the reddest the great Elixir commanding all Metals and reducing them to the highest period of Nature which is Gold it self having attained a plusquam perfection through the marvellous co-operation of Art and Nature Thus Gold is thy Base or Foundation the Centre to which all thy Operations return and in which they rest for they are but Circulations in their own kind and these Circulations are uncessantly carried along through the never-ceasing action of the Fire which a little intermission would retard notably an extinction of the heat would extinguish irrecoverably If any then should ask us what our natural Operation of the Stone is we would answer a making of active Natures passive and passive active by continual decoction We boyl continually and when the Spirit is active there is a constant ascension and descension and the Body is dissolved and made to fly like a Spirit and when the Body is active the Fumes by little and little cease and the Compound remains below boiling without fuming thickning and then at length calcining and this is without hands repeated three times the Fire only being kept continually and then a Sabboth of rest and perfection is attained in the mean time divers colours come and go which the dying Body and vegetative Soul do work and cause Trust me Friend and Brother thou never hadst such a manuduct as this in thy life the Reasons of my plainness my little Latine Treatise doth clearly shew The Battle 's fought the Conquest won The Lyon dead reviv'd The Eagle's dead which did him slay And both of sense depriv'd The Showrs cease the Dews which fell For six weeks do not rise The ugly Toad that did so swell With swelling bursts and dies The Argent Field with Or is stain'd With Violet intermix'd The sable Black is not disdain'd Which shews the Spirits fix'd The Compound into Atoms turn'd The Seeds together blended The flying Soul to th' Earth return'd The soaring Bird descended The
King and Queen contumulate And joyn'd as one together That which before was two by Fate Is ty'd which none can sever The King begets the Queen with Child Conjunction doth allay Their fury who before were wild Conception both doth slay The King is Brother to his Wife And she to him is Mother One Father is to both whose life Depends upon each other The one when dead the other dyes And both are laid in Grave The Coffin's one in which both lyes Each doth the other save Yet each the other doth destroy And yet both are amended One without t' other hath no joy Both are of one descended Twice fourty days do come and go To which twice five are added These do produce a perfect Crow Whose blackness chears hearts sadded Twice fifteen more produce a Dove Whose wings are bright and tender Twice ten more make the Soul above To need no Fire defender For Soul and Body so combine The Spirit interceding Tincture to give of Silver fine The Soul the Body in leading Also such fixity to add Against the Flames prevailing Which may the Chymist make full glad The Sophister still failing Who seeks in fancies for to find Our Art so much concealed Not duly weighing in his mind That 't is a Fountain sealed Which one thing only can unlock This one thing learn to know Lest you the same event should mock That thing these Lines do shew AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Second Gate Which is DISSOLUTION The Second Gate Opened Which is DISSOLUTION Of Dissolution now will I speak a word or two Which sheweth out what erst was hid from fight And maketh intenuate things that were thick also By virtue of our first Menstrue clear and bright In which our Bodies eclipsed been of light And of their hard and dry compaction subtilate Into their own first Matter kindly retrogradate HAving run through the Chapter of Calcination I now come to handle Dissolution which as I said before is the first beginning of the Spirits activity and it is the first half of the Wheel which turns up the Spirit and down the Body the second hath a contrary operation for it makes the Body active and Spirit passive so then Calcination hides the profundity of the Body which Solution discovereth It is then nothing else but a boiling of hard and dry Bodies in our Mercury in a convenient Fire so long till they be dissolved and made thin then the same Fire makes them fly and flying they condense and return in drops on the Body and moisten it This is Solution and Sublimation together for the Water circulating upon the Body doth soften it and by often returning doth at length bring it to its own nature of moisture In this Resolution according to Artephius the Sun loseth its colour and is darkned and the Moon doth not give her light for all things are turned into their confused Chaos or first Matter in which the Elements with their qualities are hurried together One in Gender they be and in Number two Whose Father is the Sun and the Moon the Mother The mover is Mercury These and no more be Our Magnesia our Adrop and none other Things here be but only Sister and Brother That is to mean Agent and Patient Sulphur and Mercury co-essential to our intent THe cause of this is the Homogeneity of the Matter wherein they agree in essence together with the difference which is between them in Sex they being in the Glass as Male and Female and in ripeness of years one being more mature and by consequent more active to wit the Sun who therefore is the Father the other more crude in comparison of the Sun and so more passive viz. the Moon which therefore is the Mother of our Stone This Mother is our Mercury which for its eminent difference from any other Mercury is called the Moon with its internal true Sulphur which is hidden under its Mercurial form doth first move for at first our Body which is Gold is dead and liveth not till it be quickned by our Mercury then it lives it behoveth thee then to put in thy Body and thy Water and let them stand together and add nothing to them This Composition duly made we call our Magnesia and our Adrop and nothing entreth neither Powder nor Liquor save only these two species which species are the perfect Body and Argent vive These two sprung out of one Root for as I told you the Soul of thy animated Mercury is perfect true Gold yet volatile which by Art may be made to appear in a fixed form so then we joyn Consanguinity with Consanguinity Brother with Sister and make them become together Man and Wife These two by continual Fire do act and re-act the Woman first and then the Man several which then are joyned and make one Hermaphrodite acting one half of each Circulation as a Woman or Spirit and the other half as a Man or Body For each of the two principles have a Sulphur and a Mercuriality the Gold or Body hath its Sulphur external and apparent the Mercury the Spirit hath it internally hidden yet both these are co-essential each to other and in that respect they are the only subjects in the World for our Art Between these two in quality contrarious Ingendred is a mean most marvellous Which is our Mercury and Menstrue unctuous Our secret Sulphur working invisibly More fierce then Fire burning the Body Dissolving Metals into Water Mineral Which Night for darkness in the North we do call FOr with their Homogeneity they have withall such a Contrariety in opposite qualities that they do no sooner feel the Fire but they are stirred up to Work and boiling and circulating in a continual Ebullition or Vapour they do mingle their homogeneal qualities together by reason of which there is a strange medium of an unnatural Fire and a putrefying Bath ingendred then the Sulphur or Fire of the Gold which is the Fire of Nature and the Sulphur of the Water do embrace one another and these two make an unnatural Fire in which the Humidity appears and the Sulphur being hidden to the eye appears in its effects only to sight and that is it burns destroys and conquers the Bodies which common Fire never could do making them to be no Bodies but a Fume of Mineral Vapour and in this Operation the Elements are confused and make our Chaos which is void and dark for here the Lights of the World are eclipsed the Sun is darkned and the Moon sheweth not its light which watrishness of the Compositions for its abundance of moisture and privation of light we call Winter and Night and the North Latitude of our Stone But yet I trow thou understandst not utterly The very secret of Philosophers Dissolution Therefore understand me I counsel thee wittily For the truth I will tell thee without delusion Our Solution is caused of our Congelation For Dissolution on the one side corporal Causeth Congelation on the other
side spiritual WHen once thou hast the true mastery of our Dissolution thou needest take no care for Congelation for governing it on with thy Fire thou shalt attain Coagulation without any laying on of hands Therefore saith Ricardus above all things it is wonderful that in our work Calcination Dissolution Sublimation Putrefaction Separation Conjunction Death and Purification should be performed in one Vessel and one linear decoction without laying on of hands for verily the Dissolution of the Body thickens the Spirit as it is in Water in which Gum or such a thing is dissolved for by how much the one is dissolved the other is congealed this proves the naturality of our Work for as a grain of Corn is in the bowels of the Earth softned with the moist Vapour and swelleth thereby this Vapour is also terminated by the fermental odour of the Grain and so both grow up together into Stalks and Ears And we dissolve into Water which wetteth no hand For when the Earth is integratly incinerate Then is the Water congeal'd This understand For our Elements are so together concatenate That when thy Body from its first form is alterate A new form is indued immediately Since nothing being without all form is utterly SO we in our Work dissolve our Body which is Gold in its own Water in which it is softned as a Seed in its proper ground and being softned it relents into Water not diaphanous such as is the Waters of the Clouds or of Fountains but Mineral even Mercury which wetteth no hand nor cleaves to any thing but that which is of its own substance and essence So that then in our Work our two Principals work not according to their single dispositions but as conjunct the one saith the Philosopher dyeth not without its Brother therefore when thou calcinest the Earth thou dost in it and with it calcine the Water and in this the Souls of both are tyed together to the end that they may serve the wise Philosophers Therefore let all thy study be to unite Natures which thou canst never do unless thou separate first their Souls by Sublimation and afterwards unite them in blackness which a continual Circulation of thy Water upon the Earth will produce Now know that when thou seest thy Water and thy Body boil together so as to thicken one another and to congeal one another that then thy science is true and then thy Body which thus thickens is not the same which thou puttest in but a middle coagulate a terra Adamica a Limus and Chaos for one form being taken away a second necessarily follows immediately for as no Body can at any time have more than one form so can it never be void of all form And here a secret I will to thee disclose Which is the ground of our secrets all And it not known thou shalt but lose Thy labour and costs both great and small Take heed therefore in error that thou not fall The more thine Earth and the less thy moisture be The rather and better Solution shalt thou see ANd here take notice by the way that that is no total Dissolution which is before Calcination but only partial the Water resolves as much as it can of the Body so much that it doth sever between its Spirit and Body but by reason of its perfection and strong compaction it finds a great deal of difficulty before a total Resolution and therefore it putrefies what is most gross and thus brings it to Atoms which when it is once subtilized beyond the exigency of its own nature it then is dissolved and relents and then Dissolution is made totally viz. after Putrefaction Then at length it becomes all like a glorious Argent vive and this immediately before the Lunary Coagulation Know then that our first loosing is into a viscous Powder which is brought on by Incrudation or rather Liquefaction for know that till after Putrefaction our Stone and Compound is moist in the Fire but hardens more and more by how much the colder it is and softens more and more by how much hotter it is and the heat slacking the boiling will change into a seeming Vegetation and the Fire going out it is hard rather than soft yet the mingling of the Natures is known by the colours and drawing to Calcination Therefore thy first Operation is to dry up thy superfluous watrish moisture not evaporating it but congealing it on the Body Think not then as some of the envious Sophistically write that the more you put of your Water the sooner you dissolve and congeal the slower No verily your Calcination is but the medium of true Solution which is trust me not total nor proper till after Putrefaction I should never have told thee this Mystery had not the love of my Neighbour compelled me That opening of the Body which is before is but an opening of its pores which lets our Water in and then after death and resurrection the Mercury of Sol is visible to the eye which before was but distinguishable by its effect Behold how Ice to Water doth relent And so it must for Water it was before Right so again our Water to Earth is went And Water thereby congeal'd for evermore For after all Philosophers that ere were bore Each Metal once was Water Mineral Therefore with Water they turn to Water all SO then our Body hath moisture in it self but this moisture is sealed as Water when frozen by the Cold. But when the pores of the Body are by our Water opened and its central Fire set at liberty this internal Fire of Nature makes the Body to become no Body but a very Spirit In this same Operation the Spirit is congealed for the Body hath in it more virtue then its two Sociats that is than the Soul and Spirit This is the action and re-action of our Body and its Water for our Body is in its occulto Mercury and our Mercury is in its occulto Sol therefore they embrace each other because of the nearness of their Natures and so the Body hath its profundity discovered and the Water its altitude and both together are glorified in one Spiritual Body together according to Noble Hermes Vis ejus est integra si versa fuerit in terram But thou canst never have this excellent fixity till the fixed have attained its volatility In which Water of kind occasionate Of qualities been repugnance and diversity Things into things must therefore be Rotate Vntil that Trinity be brought to perfect Vnity THis Water into which our Bodies are first liquefied is not properly Water but modo quodam as we may say in the Fire During the predomination of the Woman all appears in a moist posture and so will do most part of the first 50 days yet this is a gross moisture and by consequence the more fit for Putrefaction in which gross Humidity all the Elements are in a confusion not the Elements of the great World but our Mineral
Elements thou must therefore work by a continual boiling in which thy Compound will appear like unto the stormy Sea in a Tempest raging and swelling waves and bubbles rising one in the neck of another incessantly The Vapour of this Bath being imprisoned condenseth and returns every moment until there be an union made of all the Elements in a terra Adamica or Limus Then will the Body Soul and Spirit remain below in the bottom of the Vessel which is as a Tomb in which they dye and rot and are putrified For the Scripture recordeth when the Earth shall be Troubled and into the deep Sea shall be cast Mountains and Bodies likewise at the last THen will our Earth be moved and the powers of our Heaven will be shaken and the windows thereof opened and an universal Deluge will come upon the face of the whole Earth which will destroy all things and cover the highest Mountains so that all Flesh shall dye these Waters will be a long time upon the face of the ground Our Bodies be likned conveniently To Mountains which after high Planets we name Into the deeps therefore of Mercury Turn them and keep thee out of blame For then shalt thou see a noble game How all will become Powder as soft as Silk So doth our Runnit kindly curd up our Milk THus have many of the envious allegorized of the Scripture and veiled their Work under several passages and overtures which are mentioned therein to which they have some resemblance they have called their Metals Sol and Luna Mountains either for the situation sake they being generally found in Mountains or by opposition sake for as Mountains are highest above ground so they lye deepest under ground or for that as the Mountains are nearer the Sun so those do approximate nearer to coelestial Influences than any other Bodies whatsoever so also they have stiled them by the names of Planets by reason of some similitude But it makes not so much for the name the thing is take the Body which is Gold and throw it into Mercury such a Mercury which is bottomless that is whose centre it can never find but by discovering its own govern them wisely with Fire as thy Matter requireth then shall thy Gold visibly liquefie in the Fire that is appear thin as if it were Mercury and it will swell bubble and boil so long till the moisture be terminated by the Body into an impalpable Powder as naturally as Runnit doth curdle Milk into Cheese This total reduction into Atoms is the perfection of Putrefaction in blackness most black and it begins before the 50 th day and endeth before or about the 90 th day in variable colours Then have thy Bodies their first form lost And others been indued immediately Then hast thou well bestowed thy cost When others uncunning must go by Not knowing the secrets of our Philosophy THen thou hast a Body not such a one as thou puttest in but Hermaphroditical which yet hath but one form Nor is it the same form it had though an accidental imperfect one in the same kind which imperfect form is not to be despised for these Ashes are the Tomb of our King Honour then the Sepulchre of him and of his Queen if ever thou expect to see them returning from the East in power and great glory Never grutch it then that thou hast destroyed thy Gold for he that thus destroys it loseth it not but soweth good Seed in good Earth from whence he shall receive it with an hundred-fold increase when as he that saveth his Gold in this Work loseth his labour and is deceived for lack of true understanding when as he undertakes this Work without the true knowledge of its causes Yet one point more I must tell thee How that each Body hath dimensions three Altitude Latitude and also Profundity By which all Gates turn we must our Wheel HAving then this Mystery which is the Stumbling-block at which thousands stumble who cannot for all their talk destroy their Bodies which is not to be done but by the Alkahest which is an unprofitable way for our Work and by our Mercury viz. in 40 days or thereabouts Then know which must be your next progress for Calcination is but a term put on our Work by Authors and it reacheth to the end of Putrefaction our first Calcination I told you before that all our Work was compleat in three Circulations and every Circulation had three periods so now I tell you that these three periods are Altitude Latitude and Profundity Altitude and Profundity being united make Latitude and so our Wheel is turned round the Profundity is the Water below the Altitude is Vapour or Waters above and the union of these two is in a Calx which is Latitude which is done by Liquefaction Sublimation and Calcination Liquefaction dissolves and confounds Sublimation volatizeth separates and washeth and Calcination unites and fixeth Knowing that thine entrance in the West shall be Thy passage forth to the North if thou do well And there thy Lights will lose their lights each deal For there must thou abide for 90 nights In darkness of Purgatory without lights THou must begin in the West and in the Autumn which is Barren for then Crops are gathered take then thou Gold which is the Harvest of Natures works and it is barren of it self to make it fruitful thou must bring on the Winter showrs which is the North Latitude and by these the Earth will be made mellow and the Seeds will rot which Seeds are Sol terrestrial in whose belly is a hidden Luna These Lights will in this Operation be darkned and by little and little a horrible Night will over-shadow the Earth and Heaven a blackness like unto Pitch this blackness and Eclipsation will continue until the end of thy first three months perhaps 100 days perhaps 120 yea sometimes 130 days as it may fall out think not this time long for it must be that thy Matters must be purified before they can or shall be glorified Then take thy course up to the East anon By colours rising variable in manifold wise To the East therefore thine ascending devise For there the Sun with day-light doth uprise In Summer and there disport thee with delight THen shalt thou see thy Exhalations to return again and by the continuance of them on thy Body light shall begin to appear which is our Spring and East season in which as the rising Sun scatters the darkness with multitude of previous colours especially in a misty morning so is it with our Work such admirable colours will appear as never were seen by the eye of man in so little a room before Then rejoyce for now our King hath triumphed over the miseries of death and behold him returning in the East with the Clouds in power and great glory Now the Night is overgone and the Morning breaks the Winter is past and the Spring comes on pleasantly with sweet showrs of April
to their station pleasant to the Philosopher to behold Of this Separation I find a like figure thus spoken So out of our Stone precious if thou be witty Oyl incombustible and Water thou shalt draw And thereabout thou needest not at the Coles to blow THese Philosophical Operations some have had the fancy to compare with some passages of Scripture but I had rather bound Philosophy within its own Pale and not allegorize the Holy Scripture thereto where Philosophy is not understood there To the thing in hand by continual decoction our Work will shew as in Circulation a real change of the ascending Humidity the first will be white and so continue a long time which is called Water or Phlegm and after it the Water will be coloured and ascend so on the sides of the Vessel which is called Oyl and this Oyl is not combustible for it is the true Sulphur of Gold and therefore as permanent as the Mercury Yet be not mistaken nor do not imagine that because we speak of incombustible Oyl that our Work is to be performed with the Fire of a Wind Oven or of Bellows as some foolishly imagine to burn up what is combustible until the very incombustible Oyl be left for all our volatile subject is turned into incombustible fixity with a moderate decoction in our secret Athanor whose heat in its highest vigoration is but very obscurely red hardly perceptible and in its lowest degree is not full half so strong or half at the most Do this with heat easie and nourishing First with moist Fire and after that with dry The Flegm with patience out-drawing And after that the other Natures wittily Dry up thine Earth until it be thirsty By Calcination else labourest thou in vain And then make it drink up the moisture again THis is a heat which is friendly to the Bodies for it causeth the Spirit to ascend and yet suffers it to return and by reason of its ascending and returning the Matter below stands continually moist and boileth with a perpetual motion and exhalation which ascends and returns day and night every hour and minute without intermission This moist Air or liquid form at bottom with Ebullition and sending forth a spiritual smoak or Vapour in which saith Artephius the whole Mastery consists continues about six weeks or thereabouts and then the boiling will turn to a Pitchy swelling and puffing up like Leavened Dough and from that time the Compound shall grow dryer and dryer coming at length to Pitch-black Atoms or Powder impalpable and the fumes shall cease for six weeks Be patient therefore in decoction and wait with a great deal of confidence until thou seest thy Water which at first ascends white and flegmatick to begin to change colour and the Exhalations to arise discoloured within the Glass Then continue your decoction till the Cloud which is conceived be brought forth for in this Operation be sure that the Seeds begin to mingle and will give you a sign of the beginning of the Conjunction of Natures and that is the gilding of the Glass about the sides within the Concave as if it were overspread with leaves of pure Gold Continue still your decoction till the Earth at the bottom begin to appear and the moisture of the Compound begin to be terminated in Diâ—ess in colour Black which is a sure sign of your right progress and without which you can never attain the Mastery Remember that in this Calcination thou hast a portion of Water in the upper part of thy Vessel which did not descend and in the time of the ceasing of the fumes the Body grows very dry even to Calcination which when it is intirely perfected the Water is as it were by a Magnetical virtue drawn down and then follows a second Liquefaction Separation thus must thou oftentimes make Thy Waters dividing into parts two So that the subtle from the gross thou take Till the Earth remain below in colours bloe That Earth is fixed to abide all woe The other part is spiritual and flying But thou must turn them all into one thing BUt to return to our Work of Sublimation which is as was touched before the Key of the whole Work by which Separation is made uncessantly each day and hour Thus are the Waters divided from the Waters that is the Waters above from them which are below for part of the Water ascends up like a fume and congeals and runs down the sides of the Glass in drops like veins and part remains still below with the Body and with it boils visibly and that uncessantly By this Work thou hast the subtle or thin parts of the Body and the thin parts of the Water ascend and mingle and the gross part of the Body and the gross part of the Water mixt below the one by subliming together and the other by boiling together thus is thy Body below compounded of two even the most fixed parts of Sol with the grosser parts of Lunaria and thy Water of two parts the Soul of Sol and the Spirit of Lunaria which is the true mystical ground of Fixation Thus by subliming in a continual Vapour whatever is Spiritual and Heavenly both in the Water and in the Body lightly ascending and in the upper part of the Glass taking the nature of a Spirit what is more gross earthy and corporeal will in the bottom take the nature of a Body whose colour the Soul being separated will be as Black as Pitch This Body is a middle substance between the Body and the Water a Limus a new Body or Adamica terra a medium between fixed and not fixed it is not so fixed as to be equal to Sol nor yet so volatile as the Mercury but it is sufficiently fixed to endure a Fire requisite for this Work and to suffer all the pain and woe of this our Purgatory in which it abides six weeks without fumes or vapour But as for the Spirit that is a tender thing nor is it able to endure the Fire but flys from it and abides in the uppermost part of the Glass only so long as the fumes arise the ascending do still meet with them which are above till at last making over great drops they fall down and when the fumes cease as much of the Spirit as the Concave of the Glass will hold without running down stays above until intire Calcination be perfected and then they are drawn down by a Magnetical virtue So that here is all the mystery of the proportion of the Glass to the Matter namely that it be so big and no bigger as in its Concave will hold up a competent quantity of Water after Calcination to water the dry pores while the Body below rots into Atoms Then shall you bring back the Water upon the Earth and circulate again so long till there be a total joyning till the Spirit become the Body and the Body become the Spirit and all be made true Fire or Tincture of which Conjunction
this true Separation is the cause and without it it cannot be made Then Oyl and Water with Water shall distill And through her help receive moving Keep well these two that thou not spill Thy Work for want of due closing And make thy Stopple of Glass melting The top of thy Vessel together with it Then Philosopher lick it is up shit IN this second Circulation which is after Conjunction there shall be no more the Body below and the Spirit above but all shall be one and the Body which is the Sulphur shall always follow the Spirit on the Fire wherever it flys The occasional cause of all this is our first Water which though vile is therefore to be much valued for it is very precious through the virtue of which it comes to pass that our Earth yields a Water and causeth it to fly with the Spirit aloft and is the Soul of our Sol which at length doth allure the said Spirit and Body to union which else would never be and then the Body beyond its own nature is lifted up moving uncessantly with the Spirit and Soul upon the Fire for all now are made one inseparably and this is called the sealing the Mother in the belly of the Infant which she bore that is the Earth below is so united to the Water that arose from it that in this Operation after this true Conjunction they are never more divided but are together sublimed and descend continually moving and altering continually until perfect Complement Now for as much as all the Mastery consists in Vapour which are called the great Winds which are in the Vessel at the forming of this our Embrio therefore great care must be had lest the Spirits exhale Which they will do without the Glass have a strong guard for first they are subtle nor that only but ascend with a great impetus by reason of our Fire which must cause the inferiora ebullire moveri continuò inferiora circulari quolibet momento and thirdly in Putrefaction the Body and Spirits have a most subtle odour which also must be retained For preventing of all thou shalt have thy Stopple as firm as any part of thy Glass which let it be strong as is said and the neck long and strong and let the neck be melted up with a Lamp or with Coals and closed well without much wringing which makes the Glass brittle but being nipt up and after that staying in the same heat turning it to and fro in the clear heat the Glass will come to as exactly close and smooth a superficies as in any other place This is the true and sure way which Philosophers have secured their Glasses by Let it cool by degrees and be very wary that it get no crack in cooling which if it do though never so little you must not connive at it lest the winds within cause it there to burst as being a weak defective place The Water wherewith thou mayst revive thy Stone Look thou distill before thou work with it Oftentimes by it self alone And by this sight thou shalt wit From feculent faeces when it is quit For some men can with Saturn it multiply And such like substance which we defie THus thou seest how our Work must be ordered in reference to its Regimen but the main matter is our Water Which Water as saith Artephius is the Vinegar of Mountains and it is the only Instrument for our Work its Preparation consists in Cohobation which we will discover In my little Treatise called Introitus Apertus and in my other Tractate called Ars Metallorum Metamorphoseâ—s I speak as much of it as a man can speak without giving a Receipt but to the Ingenious what there is written is far better than any Receipt This I say that it must first be cohobated in a very wonderful way for it is such a Cohobation that hath not its like in the World and for several times to a determinate number and after it may and ought to be distilled per se without addition again and again that thou mayst have the Water clean from any Exotical mixture When it ascends like to the Pearled dew thou mayst then know that it is sufficiently pure which is not till all the filthiness be cast from the centre and wash'd from the superficies Thy Water then hath so excellent a Pontick faculty that it will dissolve Jupiter Saturn or Venus into Mercury and Sulphur for it commands Metals as their true Water Mineral which no Mercury in the World is but our Mercury nor can be for Reasons known to the Adepti which if I should give there would be none almost so stupid but would easily apprehend them for they are most demonstrable This only I at present say of this Mercury that it is the Mother of Metals and therefore hath power to reduce them by dividing their principles of Sulphur and Mercury but we count it a loss to imploy our Mercury to such such sordid uses for we spoil the goodness of it hereby Gold only is drowned in it that is it is reduced without division of parts but though the Sulphur and Mercury be for a time distinct yet they will joyn with the Water and together and so remain perpetually which other Metals in their dissolution will not for their Sulphurs being not perfect are rejected to the superficies and never are received to union again for they are Heterogeneous Distill it therefore till it be clean And thin like Water as it should be Like Heaven in colour bright and sheene Keeping both figure and ponderosity There with did Hermes moisten his Tree In his Glass that he made it to grow upright With Flowers discoloured beautiful to sight SO then to return to what we digressed a little from thy Water must be so long distilled until it be very clean for this saith the Philosopher is thy first work to make clean thy Mercury and then into clean Mercury to put clean Bodies for who can expect a pure Generation from that which is unclean The next property of thy Water is that it must be thin even as thin as any other Mercury for if the external proportion be corrupted it is an evident sign that the inward nature is confused It must also be of a very bright colour even like to fine burnished Silver as saith Artephius Hence saith a certain Philosopher that our Water to sight is like to a Coelestial Body Our Water must not be reduced into any limpid Diaphanous liquor as some fondly imagine and as I my self in my time of errours did conceit but it must keep its Mercurial form pure and incorrupted It is also very ponderous so ponderous that it is somewhat more weighty then any other Mercury in the World This is the only one Mercury and there is none in the whole World besides it which can do our Work with this Hermes did moisten his Body and made it to rot and putrefie By means of this Water
the Body shall be brought to have a vegetative Soul for it will shoot forth as with Sprigs and Leaves and Branches and after it will resolve into Powder like Atoms In the time of this process many colours shall come and go rise and set which will be a pleasant spectacle to the beholder and shorten the time wonderfully which else would seem very tedious This Water is like to the venomous Tyre And with it the mighty Triacle is wrought It is a poison most strong of ire A stronger poison cannot be thought Oft times therefore at the Pothecaries it is sought But no man shall thereby be intoxicate From time it is to Medicine Elixerate THis Water is by Philosophers called their Venom and indeed it is a very strong poison to wit to the Body of Sol to which it is mixed but what it is to the Body of Man I never tried my self nor gave it to another nor do I believe did any of they But as concerning the Medicine that is made by it and out of it it is certain that of all Medicines in the World it is the highest for it is the true Arbor vitae which doth answer the universal desires of them who have it in this kind for besides its virtue Curative which it hath in a wonderful miraculous way it can penetrate even to our Constitutive principles which no other Mineral Medicine can do Though Paracelsus glory much of his Renovantia Restaurantia which we have known as being Masters of his secret Alcahest of which if I live I will write a particular Treatise yet it is not his Haematina nor yet his Arcana nor his Elixiria nor his Essentiae nor any of his secrets which are surely noble Medicines that can reach the root of Life which this can and will for it performs all only it cannot prevail against the appointment of God otherwise were it not for that decree it could really keep a man immortal for it renews Youth retards Age and restores to most exquisite and compleat health encreaseth strength wonderfully yea it will not only renew Hair to those from whom it is fallen but it will change the hoary head into a youthful colour which will not grow hoary again for many years nor ever if the use of it were fully known and it were used as it ought to be Hereupon in respect of its wonderful virtue after it is made into Medicine Philosophers have by Analogy concluded that it was before the greatest poison for they have a Maxim ex summo veneno summa Medicina which as I do not always hold true so I shall not here dispute But he who thinks because Philosophers say it is such a deadly poison that it is to be bought at the Apothecaries or Druggists he is mistaken for as it is first bought I confess it is very venomous but this malignity I conceive and know is fully taken away before it become the Philosophers Mercury But whatever it be in its Crudity I am sure it is not so in its Perfection for he who shall take of it then shall be so far from receiving any damage by it that he shall find it to be a soveraign Medicine which hath not its like in the whole Universe For then as is the Triacle true And in its working doth marvels shew Restoring many from death to life But see thou mingle it with no Corrosive But choose it pure and quick running If thou thereby wilt have winning IT is not the Triacle of Galen nor yet of Hippocrates which yet if right made are of great efficacy that can compare to it for first it kills all the venom of any disease or malady so that those diseases which do astonish the beholders are by this overcome even ad miraculum for suppose a man dying with the Tokens of the Plague so that he is upon the very point of departure and the decree be not past for then there is no recovery if he have but a drop of this Elixir poured down so that he swallow it he shall immediately recover and in short time he will be restored to his former health Now that it doth immediately reach the root of Life I shall demonstrate Suppose one with a very languishing disease be consumed to nothing in comparison and for want of Spirits be just going out of the World so the decree be not past if he have but strength even in the Agony of death but to take a drop of this Elixir he will recover and revive and in a few days in comparison will be doubly stronger then ever he was before Suppose one of a very weak Constitution and sickly and every day ill feeble all over if he take of this Elixir it will in a short time alter his Constitution fundamentally so that he shall be far stronger then any other man ordinarily is A noble Philosopher though I scarce believe him to be an Adeptus of the Stone hath wrote of late a small Treatise of Fevers the Lithiasis and the Pestilence and there he saith in one of his Tractates That the loss of strength which is made by Venery and Bloud-letting is wholly irrecoverable It is true and I verily believe that he had Medicines very noble and it is pity but he had this secret to preserve his old age for I seriously profess that of all the Tractates that ever I read they are the most Philosophical but by this expression it is evident that he was ignorant of this secret For although by Venery or a Tabes or Bleeding or by any other way a man be debilitated he may be restored by this Elixir not only to perfect health but also to such a measure of strength which he never had before Yea and a man or woman who is born to hereditary weakness may be changed into a more then ordinary strength by the use of our Medicine or a man who by labour sickness and years is come to the Graves mouth even to drop in it may by use hereof be restored his hair his teeth and his strength so that he shall be of greater agility then in his youth and of greater strength and may live many years provided the period of the Almighties decree be not come For Minerals are of all Sublunary Bodies the most perfect and the best part of them are Metals which when they are perfect defend themselves from all fear of corruption perpetually Now the Spirit of the Metal when it is exalted to a millenary perfection it tingeth all Metals imperfect to an incorruptible purity but then this Spirit must be made a Body according to the saying of Hermes Vis ejus est integra si versa fuerit in terram But this transcendent Tincture may be dissolved into an Oyl or rather a pure Liquor which then is not proper for Metals but is only Medicinal for it is of the nature of Light and therefore it doth as readily concur with our formal vital principle as one flame will
or Fiery part of the Body as Light will mix with Light and then the gross part of the Body and of the Water in the bottom of the Vessel will be brought in absence of the Soul and Spirit to putrefie So then these two Fiery Natures being Homogeneous will readily mix and will sublime together in form of a white Smoak or Vapour as saith noble Artephius and there condensing in the top of the Vessel that is about the fides and in the Concave of the Glass will return again and circulate up and down till it have destroyed the solidity of the Body making it no Body but subliming what is subtle and what is earthly and resisting turning into Ashes or an impalpable Powder by Calcination And after Putrefaction is compleat by Circulation the most fixed part which is called the Body of Fixion the essential and most permanent part of both Body and Water will ponderously be lifted up and carried aloft into the Air. And without this Separation and Division all is nothing for this is the very Key of the Mastery it is the cause of Generation therefore in vain is whatever is attempted without this boiling the gross and subliming what is subtle that in the troubles of the stormy Sea which works up and down as the Sea in the mighty Winds what is pure may ascend and whatever is impure may remain at the bottom and when all that is pure is ascended that which is left is called the Earth that remains So Artephius Now to help thee in at this Gate This last secret I will disclose to thee Thy Water must be seven times sublimate Else shall no kindly Dissolution be Nor Putrefaction shalt thou none see Like liquid Pitch nor colours appearing For lack of heat within thy Glass working NOte then that Sublimation which otherwise is called Separation Division Ascension and Descension is the Key of the Work it is placed for the third Gate and yet it is the last and the first the last it is called by Ripley and I to Eccho to his voice assure thee it is the first and last And as the Key of all our Operations is Separation so the Key to it is our true Mercury truly prepared and proportioned as it ought to be Now the proportion of thy Water is in reference to its internal additional Sulphur which is added by the Philosopher which is done by successive Eagles which are made by our Philosophical Arsnick the number of which ought to be seven The darkness vanishing and the light appearing after many showrs before the flight of each Eagle our Water being thus acuated is by Acuation purged and then it becomes powerful in dissolving the Body which will be done with a fewer number of Eagles or a greater but with 7 or 9 most desiredly This acuated Water is also the Instrument which doth move the Gold to putrefie which no other Agent in the World can do for by this the Body is ground softned and mollified the pores of it are opened and the Sulphur invisible is set at liberty which causeth the Body to rot change colours and at length become black like unto melted Pitch But if thou omit any of the number of Eagles or fail in the goodness of thy Arsnick or erre in the preparation of the Water with thy Arsnick either in Conjunction or Purification or Digestion or any other errour of which experience will warn thee do not then expect that the most exact Regimen of heat of thy external Furnace will do the Work Four Fires there be which thou must understand Natural against Nature unnatural also And the Elemental which doth burn the brand These four Fires use we and no moe Fire against Nature must do thy Body woe This is our Dragon as I thee tell Fiercely burning as the Fire in Hell NOw to give thee a touch concerning our Fire which he that knows may well be accounted a Master of our Secrets We have indeed four Fires which is one more than Artephius numbred which yet he intended to include The most noble Fire is Natural which is that which we seek to have multiplied and that is the Sulphur of Gold or rather its Fiery Tincture it is that which we seek for and we use Mercury for Sol his sake Our next Fire is our Fire against Nature and that is the Fire of our Water which is to be corrupted and by this corruption Multiplication is made The third Fire is Unnatural which is the mixture of these two Fires while they are in their action and passion and neither doth actually predominate Now for to give you a reason of these Fires denomination know that Mineral Fire is Sulphur which is hot and dry and it is the death of the Mineral Tree that is it is the cause of coagulating that is taking away the flux of the Mercury which is cold and moist this in Gold is apparent for it is a coagulated perfect Body fixed and permanent in all tryals this it hath from its Fire or Sulphur and this is Natural But now our Water hath an actual and active Sulphur in it and yet quick and fluid a Fire in Water which yet is not burned this Sulphur is true Gold and yet it is volatile this is a Riddle the Philosophers Mystery and yet true this is contrary to Natures ordinary operation in Mineral Bodies Now Nature will always care and provide for her own Child before a Stranger Gold is her own Son and is according to her own Rules but this Mercury is the Son of the Philosopher to whose nativity though Nature contribute her help yet he is out of her ordinary road and through the co-operation of Art and Nature he is for his qualifications an astonishment to Nature hot and dry internally and that actually for it is impregnated with real Sulphur and yet not coagulated but in one word Ignis aqua Gold truly so called and that most pure yet volatile and crude and no abortive not perfect yet left in the way to perfection and yet its virtue active not extinguished This subject Nature finding mixed with her Son the King even Gold by it she endeavours to mend his Constitution and to multiply his virtue for though living Gold be a thing of admirable force yet being out of the ordinary channel of Natures operations Nature doth not mind its preservation much less its propagation These three forenamed Fires are internal secret and invisible but there is one more which we use which is not ours properly for every Sophister hath it and useth it as well as we and that is Culinary Fire which yet is so necessary that without it we can do nothing nor yet without the true knowledge of its due proportion So then we use no Fires of Dung nor of the Sun or of Baths at some Sophisters perswade themselves and others for these are all the Fires which we use With the secret Sulphur that is in our Water which we proportion
The cause of his life his Sister did slay This made him full sad And grief made him mad Thus soon his strength fell to decay His House and Chamber were so charg'd with heat It made him to faint And fainting fell into a grievous sweat His sweat did so taint The Room With foul persume Which did e'en almost suffocate So feeble he grew He could not eschew But dung'd and piss'd there where he sate At length with sorrows many he expires Full glad of the change That death at last should answer his desires But what is most strange When dead That it might be said How dearly he his Sister did love Their Corps did unite That they in despight Of Fire would not asunder move And thus together they contumulate A rotting did lye Passing through dismal Purgatories Gate Wherein they did fry So long Vntil among The Saints for purity they might pass Their sins were no more To be found on score They then were clear as Crystal Glass A Spirit then of life from Heaven came In their Bodies dead Which now united of renowned fame To Heaven were led Where they Abode for aye Enjoying pleasures for evermore To death not subject Were now the object Of wonder for th' had Riches store AN EXPOSITION UPON THE Fourth Gate Which is CONJUNCTION The Fourth Gate Opened Which is CONJUNCTION After the Chapter of Natural Separation By which the Elements of our Stone dissevered be The Chapter here followeth of secret Conjunction Which Natures repugnant joyneth to perfect unity And so them knitteth that none from others may flee When they by the Fire shall be examinate They be together so surely conjungate HAving run through the Chapter of Separation with a plain stile we shall now come to the life of all which is Conjunction for we seek not a thing which may be capable of Separation but which may abide in all tryals the parts being impossible to be separated one from another for so our Tincture ought to be or else it will be wholly unprofitable for our purpose For Separation is but the middle motion by which we pass from the unary simplicity of Gold to the millenary plusquam perfection of our Stone before which can be attained there must be a loosing of the Compages of the Body that so the Spiritual Fire or Tincture may be set loose which being loosed will certainly multiply it self with that by which it was dissolved with which it is necessary that it should Radically be mixed and united so as that both the dissolvent and the dissolved may make one together This then is the benefit of our Water that it doth not only reduce open and mollifie our Body and cause it to send out its Seed but it is actually recongealed with the fermental virtue of this seminal influence of Gold that it becomes together with the Body one new Body perpetually united So that although our Water be volatile when it is first taken yet notwithstanding after it hath first made the Body no Body but a Spirit in which spiritualizing the Virtue or Tincture is augmented after that the Body by Congelation makes this no Spirit but a Body by which the fixity is advanced mightily so that both will endure all Fire For it is not only an apparent union that is made but real so real that the Spirit and the Body pass one into another penetrating each others dimensions the Spirit being one with the Body and the Body being the Spirit the Form swallowing up the Matter in unity so that all becomes really Tincture And therefore Philosophers give this definition Saying this Conjunction is nothing else But of dissevered qualities a Copulation Or of principles a Coequation as others tells But some men with Mercury that Apothecaries sells Meddleth Bodies that cannot divide Their Matter and therefore they slip aside OF this Operation Philosophers make a great Mystery and speak of it very hiddenly in respect to the terminus of it which they call the hour of the Stones Nativity in which they say many marvels will appear for all the colours that can be invented in the World will be then apparent Some say their Conjunction is our reconciliation of Contraries a making friendship between Enemies because in that time the volatile is still ascending and descending upon the fixt this is by them ascribed to Contrariety Others measuring all sublunary things by the rules of Symmetry and Ametry do ascribe this Operation which they for similitude sake compare to a Duel to the over-prevailing of one principles qualities above the qualities of the other and therefore they define Auriety to be the Anaticalness of the four Elements in mixture each in his quality acting proportionable to the resistance of its contrary vice versa But this is but an Entanglement in which the Chymists stumble upon School Academical Principles I had rather embrace their Secret as for Operation but for Philosophy jump with that noble Bruxellian whose promised Treatises when the World shall enjoy I suppose they will be the profoundest piece of Philosophy that ever was revealed to the World which I admire not so much for his Experiments of none of which I am ignorant nor Paracelsus to boot many yea most of which are far harder though sooner wrought than the Elixir and the Alchahest is a hundred times more difficult but what I most honour in that noble Naturalist is that he did search out the Occulta Naturae more accurately then ever any did in the World So that setting aside the skill of this Mastery of which I cannot find any footsteps in what of his is extant I am confident he was without flattery Natures Privy-Counsellor and for Philosophical verity might have commanded this Secret but God doth not reveal all to all men yet who knows what he may live to be Master of in this point too This I speak not to flatter him who besides what is evident to the whole World in his Writings have no other character of him and to him I am like to remain a perpetual Stranger yet could as heartily desire his acquaintance as any mans I know in the World and if the Fates prevent not mine intentions by mine or his death I shall endeavour familiarity with him But this by the way To return whence I digressed our final secret is first to unite the Spirit and Soul of our dissolving Water that by the mediation of the Soul the Spirit and Body may be conjoyned and then after several Sublimations and Precipitations made for that end that the Body may be spiritualized and the Spirit corporalized so fix together the Soul Body and Spirit the flying and the fixt that all the Elements to use Philosophers terms may acquiesce and rest in this Nest of Earth in which all the virtue of the superiours and inferiours is contained both in power and act From what hath been said may appear the strong passive delusion that hath taken many men of our Age and formerly
who with the Chymist in Sendivogius cannot dream of any other Mercury then that Mercury which is to be bought at Druggists which they take and sublime variously to make it clean and then with Hogheland mix it with Gold applying all the words and sayings of Philosophers to this their mixture But when the time comes that they should see the signs specified of the Philosophers there they fail it may be by reason of something external to the Gold which it gets in foliating or the Mercury which it gets in washing and purging which though it be but little yet it is enough in heat to give a light Tincture to the Superficies they may with Hogheland see a discoloured outside which is nothing for our Operation is not so trivial that a man had need of Spectacles and a most clear light to discern it but it is so apparent that a half blind man would be amazed at it for our Body even the perfect Body is divided which common Mercury can never do though a man bless himself never so much in his mock-purgations But when as such Work-men have waited their time out and it may be out again and see not blackness then they run into another extreme and share the fault of their errour which was only in their Mercury or withall in their proportion for pondus and heat of external Fire between both principles and then say with Hogheland our Mercury and our Gold are not vulgar but they are something no man knows what which the Philosophers have called Gold and Mercury which yet are some strange thing which man never heard of or some common thing or some vile thing Thus they vanish into smoak and all for want of knowledge of our true Mercury For until the Soul be separate And cleansed from its original sin With the Water and throughly spiritualizate The true Conjunction mayst thou never begin Therefore the Soul first from the Body twine Then of the corporal part and of the spiritual The Soul shall cause Conjunction perpetual REmember then that thou get such a Mercury which may destroy and conquer thy Body mollifie it soften it and draw out its Seed and sever the Soul from it by virtue of that Spirit which is in thy dissolving Water Spirits naturally uniting with Spirits as one flame will mix with another The Soul being thus severed from the Body it will dry and rot as naturally as any other thing will that hath its Soul separated And as by the Water which extracts the Soul it dies and grows putrid and black so by the same Water it is washed from its filthy blackness then the clean Soul having cleansed the Body is united to it that from that time the Body follows the Soul and is moved always with it upon the Fire flying and descending in the form of a Spirit which is a wonder to behold This is our Secret so much esteemed Conjunction which is celebrated after the loosing putrefying and purifying of our Body This is the true process of our Work according to the true exigency of Nature first the Soul is to be divided from the Body that is grosness may be purged by corruption and rotting and the Spirit which is a form of light and seminal may being let loose multiply it self by the Spirit of the Water and so being allied to the Body from whence it was drawn and to the Water from whose Spirit it receives an increase in virtue and Tincture it may unite both the Spirit and the Body with a perpetual bond He who works thus shall undoubtedly attain unto perfection Of two Conjunctions Philosophers mention make Gross when the Body is with Mercury reincrudate But let this pass and to the second heed take Which is as I said after Separation celebrate In which the parties be left with least to colligate And so promoted unto most perfect temperance That never after may be repugnance BUt when as the Philosophers speak of Conjunction it is warily to be considered of what Conjunction they do mean for as it is a term very often used so is it very doubtfully to be taken One Conjunction which they speak of is gross which is properly Amalgamation it is the first Operation after the preparation of the Mercury But this is not the Conjunction here to be understood but a more secret by far in which man worketh nothing at all but stands by only and beholds Natures Operation And this work is done without any laying on of hands and very quickly when the Matters are prepared and made fit This work is therefore called a Divine Work This Conjunction is far more intimate than the gross for this is an union per minima or intima so that the essence of the one enters the essence of the other so as to make it but one substance This maketh a temper which man by no Art could make for even as Water mixed with Water is inseparable so is it now with these principles Now is concord amity and friendship made for now the hot and the dry will embrace the cold and moist and now patience is made between the Water and the Fire Thus causeth true Separation true Conjunction to be had Of Water and Air with Earth and Fire But that each Element into other may be led And so abide for ever at thy desire Do as do Dawbers with Clay or Mire Temper them thick and make them not too thin This do up-drying the rather thou shalt win THus the Proverb is verified Amantium irae amoris redintegratio est for Love brought them together Love parted them with a seeming discontent and at last Love unites them with a perpetual tye that they can no more part for ever without a new Resolution in this dissolving Water after they are first become perfect Now the same thing is both moist and dry hot and cold according to the qualities of the Elements that I may speak according to the usual voice of Philosophers for now is of two made three and of three made four and of four one the Quadrangle is turned into a Circle to the amazement of Nature For the essence of one Element now penetrateth the essence of another that is the essential properties are so throughly mixed that all four now make but one partaking of all These are those principles which God now hath conjoyned and therefore nothing can separate Rejoyce now O Son of Art for thou hast the Sun for thy Diadem and the Moon Crescent for thy Garland That thou mayst the more certainly easily and speedily attain to this and that thy signs may the better and orderly appear next to thy care of preparing true and purged Mercury and pure Gold first be sure of thy mixture mix them like as a Potter mixeth his Loam Be sure you do not over-glut your Earth with Water nor cloy your Water with Earth but impast them and then grind them together as diligently as a Painter would grind his Colours for
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
not so thin and yet so soft that it is easily plyable yet so that it may be rouled up in Balls and no quick Mercury run down or sink to the bottom He that can miss in this direction would hardly find the shining Sun at Noon-day Loosing and knitting be principles two Of this hard Science Poles most principal Howbeit that other principles be many moe c. WE have done this Chapter and to conclude assure thee that all our twelve Gates are nothing else but locking and unlocking shutting and opening dissolving and congealing volatizing and fixing making the dry soft and afterwards the soft dry loosing and binding Learn but this and thou shalt be sure of the Keys of this Terrestrial Paradise Yet because I would be more clearly understood I shall pass through the other Gates of the Philosophers that running through their multiplicity I may as I go reduce them all to unity UPon a day as I abroad was walking The pleasant Fields to view A voice I heard in silence softly talking Of Wonders passing new Whereat I starting stood like one amazed Not knowing what to guess But when I round about a while had gazed This terrour it grew less The voice I heard came from a Grove which there At my right hand did grow Which I considering silently drew near The cause of it to know Where I did see a Lady finely dressed Sit sighing by a Spring She uttered words as if with grief oppressed And oft her hands would wring Ah me quoth she how is my joy departed Oh dismal cruel death Could any think the Fiend so flinty hearted So to bereave him breath I then drew near and thought to have asswaged With pleasant words her grief The more I spake the more she was enraged Nay she disdain'd relief Her face was Lilly white with Purple spots Vpon her cheeks and chin Her Rosie lips her feature free from blots T' amaze me did begin Beauty most rare quoth I what dost thou weeping What Wight most vile shall dare To wrong thee whom the Gods have in their keeping Whose face is mortals snare Good Sir quoth she forbear your words of sorrow I live yet living dye I wish my life might end before the morrow Ah death I fear 's not nigh I had a Husband dear of comely feature A King of great renown So lovely and so loving that in Nature There 's none may put him down His Constitution was so strong he scorned To fly from any Foe His Person was with grace so well adorned That none but him did know Great Phoebus he was nam'd whose princely merit 'T is death for to recite So Rich he was the wealth he did inherit Great honour did invite We walking here the pleasant Woods among Found this unhappy Spring Of which to drink for thirst my Lord did long Which draught his end did bring For stooping down the Water with its stream His head did make so light He could not rise but dropt into the stream To everlasting Night He strove to swim but to the bottom sank O dismal sight to see Then swelling with the Water which he drank Himself he could not free But burst and then the Spring began to boil And bubbling colour chang'd 'T is wonder for to see alas the spoil King dead and Spring estrang'd So from its former state that what then shone Like unto glittering Skie Now like a stinking Puddle reaks that none Can it endure yea I Who in it lost a Husband dear do loath The vapours that ascend I hope one Spring will be the end of both 'T would be a happy end So long she spake until the Water seem'd Like Ink so black it grew And eke the savour erst so bad esteem'd Did far surpass the hew The Air with Clouds most dark was fill'd that never Such Fogs and Mists were seen The which a Soul from the dead Corps did sever Whose colour first was green Then yellow mixt with blue the fumes ascended Which bore the Soul on high Which when the Lady saw her tears were ended She fainted by and by Into the same Stream she did swouning drop And never more appear'd She lov'd her Husband so she would not stop Like one of death afear'd And straightway she of vital breath depriv'd Was of a Lady fair A Carcass made thus both in love who liv'd Alike in death did share Their Souls disjoyned from their Bodies hov'ring Vpon the Fountain plaid Expecting if their Carcasses recovering Might have their lives repaid The Sun in Solstice stood whose heat did dry The Waters more and more And eke beneath a Central heat did fry And sent up vapours store Which still return'd so long till they were chang'd The greater part to dust The wandring Souls which long had been estrang'd Were now allur'd with lust Of their own Bodies in whose Atoms lay A strange Magnetick force They also though long banish'd day by day Awaited the dead Coarse For Souls united were Bodies combin'd And both to each ally'd So nearly that no sooner they can find A way but they are ty'd With knot inviolable that no power How strong it may appear Can part them any more even from the hour They thus united were Thus two one Body have of double Sex Which doth no sooner live But is impregnated this doth perplex Their foes who fain would drive This tender off-spring to despair but God Him safely ever keeps From all Invasion nor permits the rod Of them to make him weep And though his Garments and his Skin be foul With blackness and with stink He shall be purged for both Spirit and Soul Are clean whate're men think A River springs amidst a Garden fair With Flowers many deckâ— Whose drops are Crystal like these into Air By Central heat are checkt This Air condenses like Pearl Orient Which on this Body falls Whose lustre on its blackness being spent To brightness it recalls And both together make a Crystal Spring Whose Streams most strangely shine These after are condens'd and with them bring Treasures of Silver fine These Treasures if to rest untoucht a while Vpon the Fire are left The stealing Azure will the white beguile And both will be bereft Of Being by the Vert which long will dure The Citrine will succeed Which will abide full long but then be sure To see the sparkling red Then is the King who formerly was drown'd Become the whole Earths wonder His Wife and he are one and both abound With wealth nor they asunder Will ever more depart now all their Foes Must their dominion know Who will not stoop shall surely feel their blows For all are him below His Brethren all who formerly were held As Slaves in prison fast Are now set free their Enemies which swell'd With pride full low were cast Thus by his death the King hath now obtain'd That Glory which before He never had his former state 's disdain'd His Wife now weeps no more She 's one with him his
death of the Compound For when they saw the Body with the Water to melt in the Fire to flow and to boyl they called this Magnesia when they saw the Water partly to ascend and partly to descend and partly to remain below so that at once there was both a Sublimation in vapour and a Motion of what was below they said that it was the Spirit of the Water that ascended or more Airy part and the more Fiery part which rejoyceth most to be united to and hidden in Earth remained below for that was more capable of the Fire and did better agree with it as with its like which because it did so uncessantly swell and boyl and rage at the bottom and make the Body begin to change its colour they said it was Fire against Nature Again when they saw the ascending Vapour to change colour they said it was the Soul of the Bodies was mixed with the Spirit which because it was green they said it was a vegetative Soul and Fire of Nature Now when the Body below began to thicken they said this was an Hermaphroditical Body because part of the Water always remained below and made the Body to boyl and bubble and flow and therefore this they called a new Body compounded of two Bodies the Sun and the Moon the Man and the Wife which because it grew to a slimy consistence they named it Limus or Limbus Hyle and a Chaos or Terra Adamica When this Body began to grow very black and to send up foul Exhalations yellowish blewish and black they said this was Death and Corruption which followed the separation of the Soul from the Body Now when they see the Souls to be again united and to remain below together they knew that the Soul and Spirit were Immortal that is the Tincture or Vital Balsam was Incorruptible and because they see them again unite they knew the Soul and Spirit would renew the Bodies and this seeming Corruption was but the natural step to a glorious Regeneration for if the Souls be again united to the Bodies they will surely regenerate them and renew them and make them incorruptible for if the Spirits had not returned to this union they might only have expected the Exhalation of them for Spiritual Tinctures or Essences cannot be destroyed by corruption in many Vegetals much less in the most perfect of Minerals and Metals The union then of the Souls with the Bodies argues evidently a hidden purity under the apparent rottenness which will after Purification be exalted to transcendent Glory Hereupon they said that the Spirit and Soul which were above were the Heavenly Quintessence and the Body below was the Earth and this Circulation of Spirits were but as the Circulation of the Heavens round about the Earth and the falling drops were but as the influential dew which did cause the Earth to fructifie and the blackness and darkness were but the Winter Latitude which with its Clouds and droppings do mellow and fertilize the Earth to shoot forth with the more beautiful varieties in the Springâ—â— And therefore like as I have said before Thine Elements commixt and wisely coequate Thou keep in temperate heat eschewing evermore That they by violent heat be not incinerate To powder dry unprofitably Rubificate But into powder black as the Crows Bill With heat of our Bath or else of our Dunghill FOr this cause they looked upon this as a secret mysterious yet very natural Operation whereby the most solid and perfect Minerals are by Nature so applied one to another and cultivated that the very Earth or Ground should be found in which this noble Tree of the Hesperides may be planted and grow the Matrix or Womb should be prepared in which this noble Off-spring may again enter and be born again Therefore what by long Experience and profound Meditation Philosophers have found out and seen that also they committed and communicated unto us so that we also are made fellow Heirs of this great Treasure and we shall as faithfully communicate our knowledge for thy Instruction First then take thy Body which is Gold and thy Water which is Mercury the one ready made by Nature to thy hand the other thou must Prepare for it is not to be found in the Land of the Living but must be made Nature here is at a non-plus and so is Art taken asunder but both together effect it Mix these together in due proportion so as I have often told thee then set them to the Fire to decoct and give them a convenient heat in which they may boyl ascend and descend perpetually without any intermission night or day But especially and before all things be careful in your Internal heat to wit the proportion of your Water for your Sulphur that you must add and supply to it in the beginning of your Work in its Preparation is that which doth perform all the work within without which your External heat is of no value for it is of it self uneffectual If then thou accend this heat so much as that it predominate it will not then dissolve the Bodies as thou expectest but contrarywise burn the Flowers before they are extracted from the depth of their Marrow this thou mayst easily do either if thy Arsnick be not made as it ought or else the number of Eagles exceeded or the proportion of thy Water to thy Body not agreeing to the number of Eagles or thy Glass not well proportioned to thy Matter it will easily burn if thy Glass be too big for so the moisture will so much be dispersed about the Concave that it will not return before the Earth below be left too dry I have given Rules easily to avoid all these inconveniences And on the other hand be sure that thou do not erre in too little heat let thy Water have Fire enough within it to make a true division and corruption which if either thy Arsnick have not sufficient Fiery virtue or if the union of this and thy Water be not well attended but slightly performed or the Purgation of thy Water be not throughly made each Eagle for so two or three Eagles may not add the virtue of one or if thy number of Eagles be not just or thy proportion of quantity be not duly observed Therefore follow my advice and be careful in both these particulars and then let your External heat be so that your Compound may boyl and sublime which for its similitude is called a Balneum so long till the Vapours cease and are retained within then will the Compound rot which for its great likeness is called our Dunghill Vntil the time that Nights be passed ninety In moist heat keep them for any thing Soon after by blackness thou shalt espy That they draw fast to putrefying FIrst then our Operations begin in humido for in the beginning moisture it prevails and is called the Phlegmatick Constitution of our Embrio and this is called the Reign of the Woman which
according to Flammel seeks to get the Domination for many months that is to say for three months or thereabouts which according to our Author is ninety days and nights to whom many other Authors agree This time may be longer or shorter according to the better or worse preparation of the Matter and the Regimen of the Fire But when thou hast set thy Glass once in the first place be sure that thou give a due yet temperate heat govern it so as that between the Waters above and the Flouds beneath the Earth may liquefie then continue your decoction and the Vessel shall be beclouded and thy Compound shall with constant Circulation become black This colour shall be a sign unto you that you have not run your course in vain this is the first Gate into which and through which you must enter now know for certain that thy Seeds begin to rot and engender In this Putrefaction there is life for this Operation is nothing else but an extracting of Natures from their profundity or root this is that which will make thy fixt Body to become a volatile Spirit for Putrefaction doth loose the bands of all the Elements Which after many colours thou mayst bring To perfect whiteness by patience easily And so the Seed in his nature shall multiply SO soon then as thou shalt have blackness compleat know for certain that in this blackness whiteness is really hidden so really as a living Plant in its Seed But before thou attain to this whiteness thou mayst have patience and pass through many middle changable colours which will be no small chearing to the Work-man who must wait with a great deal of Longanimity until the Earth and Heaven be united Then shall thy Elements perfectly accord and one colour shall cover thy new-married Soul and Body and that will be like to the most pure Lilly or sublimed Salt sparkling like to a new-slipped Sword in the Sun beams In this whiteness is the Multiplicative virtue exalted and made apparent in its first degree by this white Soul thou mayst turn either Mercury or Saturn or Jupiter or Venus or Mars into most pure refined Silver in a short time and that not Sophistically to apparency but in reality inwardly and outwardly to abide all Essays Make each the other to halâ—e and kiss And like as Children play them up and down And when their Shirts are filled with Piss Then let the Woman to wash be bown Which oft for faintness will fall in a swoâ—â— And die at last with her Children all And go to Purgatory to wash their filth Original BUt in thy first Operation as is said before first look for blackness which will appear in the first Regimen by continual decoction which blackness shall be an Indicium to you that your two Natures do begin now to imbrace and kiss one another For so soon as they feel the Fire they flow together within the Vessel and boyl by continuance of decoction visibly and the tender Nature not enduring the heat flyeth aloft and being inclosed so that it cannot get out it congeals in drops in the head of the Vessel and about the sides and again returns to its Body which may well be called Childrens play running round as it were in a Circular motion This play continues so long till the Water begins to leave its thicker parts with the thicker parts of the Body which in the bottom of the Vessel is called Vrina puerorum and the thinner parts of the Water mixed with the thinner parts of the Body which is dissolved in it flies still and circulates until it have made a more full dissolution of the Body which here by the odour of its Sulphur doth penetrate the Spirit and Soul and makes them faint at last and remain as it were breathless in the bottom of the Glass Then shall the Body be destroyed and both the Water and it rot into small Atoms which will lie without motion growing every day more and more black until at length Cimmerian darkness cover the whole Sky This is called the North Latitude of our Stone and it is Winter cold and dirty here are the Elements brought to rest for a time until a Generation be made in the bottom of the Glass when through the will and power of God a clean thing shall be brought out of this uncleanness and black venenosity When they be there by little little increase Their pains with heat aye more and more The Fire from them let never cease And see that thy Furnace be surely apt therefore Which wise men call an Athanor Concerning heat required most temperately By which thy Matter doth kindly putrefie NOw thy Bath will begin to be a little more heated and stirred up to wash this young King which though noble is yet conceived in a Stable for at this time thou hast the Sulphur of thy dissolved Body let loose which mixing with the Sulphur of the Water doth acuate it exceedingly the one being a natural the other a Fire against Nature both together make an unnatural Fire burning like to the Fire of Hell comparable to nothing but the Alcahest Nor must thou think that this increase of Fire consists in the blowing of the Coal no verily it is a more subtle internal Fire that we have and yet that also must be kept constant and in due order For this cause see that thy Furnace be trusty else thou mayst and wilt fail for though the Fire of Coals do not effect any thing yet it excites and the Water though it be of a wonderfull nature yet it acts no farther then it is stirred up and intermission in this Work when it is once begun will in the end prove fatal extinction Therefore the Wise men have named the Furnace in which they work their Secrets an Athanor that is Immortal shewing that from the beginning to the end the Fire must not go out for the extinction of it destroys the Work and as death includes all sicknesses which are steps to it so an Immortal Furnace or Athanor must not only preserve the Fire from going out but also from exorbitancy either on one hand or other for whatever swerves from the temperate mean hinders the kind operation of the Matter which is Putrefaction by which means the Work is notably retarded and weakned and by continuance of any extremity it will be destroyed but with its due heat it doth putrefie kindly Of this principle speaketh sapient Guido And saith by rotting dyeth the Compound corporal And then after Morien and others moe Vp riseth again regenerate simple and spiritual And were not heat and moisture continual Sperm in the Womb might have none abiding And so there should no fruit thereof up spring THis according to the intention of all Philosophers Guido Turba Arnaldus and others but especially noble Trevisan whom I chiefly honour so Flammel Artephius Morien and all Philosophers testifie thus much namely that the heat must be so adequated to the
Compound as that in it the Body through the Pontick virtue of the Water may have its Sulphur let loose and so these two Sulphurs mixing together may bring the whole to rotting or Putrefaction By which putridness a Ferment is engendred which as it doth volatize all things naturally so it doth quicken this gross dead Body in so much that it mounts aloft upon the Fire with the Water and riseth a new glorious Body mixed with the Water so that both being become one together the Spirit borrows from the Body permanency and the Body from the Spirit obtaineth penetrativeness so that both make one coelestial and terrestrial Compound named the Regenerate Body and Stone of Paradise incombustible All which is occasioned by the continuance and not failing of heat both inwardly and outwardly by which the moisture is circulated and depurated without which the seminal virtue would be extinct which only vegetates by heat and moisture And if once the seminal virtue were kill'd the remaining Compound would be no better then a dead unprofitable thing which could never be recovered so that if either moisture or heat within or convenient heat without should fail there is nothing to be expected but according to the Poet Cuncta ruent quae non ulla reparaveris Arte Therefore at the beginning our Stone thou take And bury each in other with their Grave Then equal between them a marriage make To lig together six weeks let them have Their Seed conceived kindly nourish and save â—rom the ground of their Grave not rising the while Which secret point doth many one beguile THis then is the process of our Work take at the first our Stone that is the true Material principles thereof which are one in kind and two in number mix these together in a due proportion then shalt thou see as follows First thy Feminine nature will so embrace thy Masculine as to extract from him his Seed that is the most digested virtue so shall the Body dye and the Water shall intomb it The Water by Cohabitation shall contract amity and friendship with the Body for it is nothing else but a Feminine Body of the same Stock which when they are united and joyned this is called the Marriage of Gabritius with Beya Then shall the Vapours cease and all Exhalations shall be withheld from ascending or descending during the space of 40 days or 42 at most in which time though thou see not the former Circulation rejoyce for now the Body begins to retain his Soul in a black colour Now the Queen hath conceived the Kingly Seed which must be nourished with gentle convenient Fire till it wax strong and become a puissant triumphant Champion whom no Earthly force is able to withstand Thou must of necessity then let them have this prefixed time for their solitude and retirement in which time the fixt and the volatile the cold and the moist the hot and the dry do learn to agree each with other being reconciled in this Head of the Crow which is the conversion of Natures into a discontinuous Calx finer then Atoms of the Sun This Operation as it is the Wyld and Labyrinth of all who seek this Art in vain so it is the Capo di Bona Esperanza to as many as attain to the perfect fight hereof for now most of the difficulties are passed which they are like to meet withall in this their Voyage to the Oriental Indies This time of Conception with easie heat abide The blackness appearing shall tell thee when they die For they together like liquid Pitch that tide Shall swell and bubble settle and putrefie Shining colours therein thou shalt espy Like to the Rainbow marvellous to sight The Water then beginneth to dry upright THou must then be very carefull that thy over-heat do not now hinder their Conjunction for now is the main fear of burning thy Flowers which thou mayst easily do and make these Natures become a half Red or Orange colour instead of the true Crows Bill Whereas if thy external heat be so gentle as not to extinguish motion thou shalt find that in this period thy Natures shall both of them die together for one is not killed nor dieth without the other which death in its approach thou shalt discover by the appearing blackness And when once the Crow shall begin to shew it self know that thou shalt see a terrible day for thou must expect to be in the heat of the shore and in the storm of the inraged Sea which now the Winds are abated after a long and strong blowing of them doth arise in waves raging and taking on and raising the filth from the very bottom so that all becomes like to a troubled Glass of Ink or melting boiling Pitch After this blackness which shall endure for a long and tedious time thou shalt see various and glorious colours to succeed such as thou never hast seen for all the colours that the mind of Man possibly can imagine shall then present themselves to view which shall be an evident token to thee that the moist and dark Dominion of the Woman doth now begin to vanish and instead thereof the Man beginneth to rule who first dryeth up the moisture of the Woman with which there will vanish blackness and the changable colours and after all shall be fixed in a sparkling dry white Powder which is the Stone of Paradise For in moist Bodies heat working temperate Engendreth blackness first of all which is Of kindly Conjunction the token assignate And of true putrefying remember this For then perfectly to alter thou canst not miss And thus by the Gate of blackness thou must come in To the light of Paradise in whiteness if thou wilt win IN the beginning therefore of our Work through the Co-operation of heat both internal and external and the moisture of the Matter concurring our Body gives a blackness like unto Pitch which for the most part happens in 40 or at the most in 50 days This colour discovers plainly that the two Natures are united and if they are united they will certainly operate one upon another and alter and change each other from thing to thing and from state to state until all come to one Nature and substance Regenerate which is a new Heavenly Body But before there can be this Renovation the Old man necessarily must be destroyed that is thy first Body must rot and be corrupted and lose its form that it may have it repaid with a new form which is a thousand times more noble So then our Work is not a forced and apparent but a natural and radical Operation in which our Natures are altered perfectly in so much that the one and the other having fully lost what they were before yet without change of kind they become a third thing Homogeneal to both the former Thus they who sow in tears shall reap in joy and he who goeth forth mourning and carrying precious Seed shall return with an abundance
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
way mark that you are to meet with is the whiteness of the Compound for the Peacocks tail though with its gayness it refresheth and delights the beholder yet those colours are but transient but the white is a stable colour and it is thy first Harvest in which the moisture is vanquished and volatile Natures are fixed The Work as it is the long-wished Haven so it is performed without any help of the Artist any more then to continue a due degree of outward heat for know that thou hast not so great a desire after this sight but Nature hath as great an appetite to obtain it for it is the end of all her former Operations from the attaining whereof thou canst not hinder her if the external heat be continued as it ought Yet about this the whole company of Alchymists do mightily busie themselves who have nothing more in their hopes then to make our great Elixir do mainly labour after Congelation though in their Solution in which the Key of our Coagulation resteth they are as stupid as Blocks Some dissolve Metals with Corrosives others Salts and afterwards filter them which they think graduates them with which trumpery they intend no less a Coagulate then the true permanent Tincture but alas they are deceived for they work not upon the right Matter Others although they happen to stumble in part upon the right Matter yet herein they erre that they understand our Operations preposterously and interpret our meaning contrary to our true intent for all that they dream of is such Operations which are to be performed by hand thus they dissolve and congeal but stumble in operandi modo For our Congelation is no such thing as this but in every point it is contrary to it for in our Operation Nature only works who therefore doth bring forth a true and not a Sophistical Operation Our Congelation dreadeth not the Firâ— For it must ever in it stand unctuous And it is also a Tincture so bounteous Which in the Air c. Moreover congeal not c. But that like Wax it will melt anon withouten blast For such congealing accordeth not c. Which Congelation availeth us not FOr as in our Solution we do not make our Gold volatile as to shew as Fools may do but actually it is made fugitive so as that by no Art of man it can ever be fixt again but only by that Nature which made it volatile so also our Fixation doth make our flying Spirits so Fire-abiding that they by no Art of man can ever be burnt away yet it will flow like Wax Nor is it fixed in manner of flying Spirits in Vegetables which are fixed by burning into an Alâ—ali for it will never relent neither in the Air nor Water like to a congealed Salt Nor yet is our Congelation a formal Transmutation of a thing by another seminal virtue for then it would become of a Stony Flinty or Adamantine nature but by its own internal virtue the Mercury is changed into Sulphur incombustible yet so as that the Mercuriality retains some of its qualities in a very noble remarkable way furnishing the Compound with a fusible unctuosity when at the same time the Sulphur retains that fluxibility with a most noble incombustibility So then take this for the Touch-stone of all thy Alchymical endeavours if ever thou intend any thing commendable in our Art see that thy Medicine be of an easie fusion so that when it is cast on a plate of Metal heated it may enter it and flow on it like Wax or melted Pitch yea let the flux be so easie that it may flow upon Mercury and enter it before its flight otherwise brag not of thy skill for thou art yet in a way of Sophistry out of which thou shalt never escape without a more then ordinary providence of God If thou therefore list to do wee l Sith the Medicine shall never else flow kindly Neither congeal without thou first it putrefie First purge then fix the Elements of our Stone Till they together congeal and flow anon THat thou therefore mayst be sure of thy Work and not repent thy cost and pains as many do when it is too late take my counsel and know that thy Medicine never can nor shall flow as it ought except thy Solution be Philosophical Know then that our Solution is not an ordinary vulgar dissolving of Bodies either by Corrosives or any other way but our true dissolving is nothing else then putrefying that is a destroying of the Compaction wholly with a preservation of the Species This Operation be sure to make before thou dream of Congelation for then thy Spirits will naturally fix and flow together congealing and relenting so long until they come to a perfect Powder impalpable which then hath ingress into all Metals penetrating their very profundity and altering them radically For when the Matter is made perfectly white Then c. But of such time thou mayst have long respite Ere it congeal c. And after into grains red as bloud Richer c. SO then our Congelation is nothing else but the whitening of the Bodies of which the Philosopher speaketh when he saith Whiten thy Body and burn thy Books lest our hearts be broken This is the Haven at which after many a nights watching and days labour thou mayst with Gods blessing hope at length to arrive but in the mean season be patient and expect the Harvest in its season First thou shalt have thy Body whitened and all become a white living Water which being moved on the Fire continually will turn first into greater and after that into smaller grains till all at length become a Calx of an exquisite fineness and transcendent brightness which is our Lilly Candent which in the end of thy Operations by continual decoction will be turned into a purple redness which is our wonderful Secret The Earthly grossness therefore first mortified in moisture c. This principle may not be denied c. Which had of whiteness thou mayst not miss c. And if c. THe cause of all these strange alterations in one Glass on one subject with one decoction without laying on of hands is from the internal disposition of the Compound which at the first is gross and Earthy therefore in decoction it becomes very black it being the nature of all moist gross things by the Fire to acquire such a colour And this is according to the intention of all Philosophers that although thou seekest white and red yet thou must at first make black before thou canst make white profitably But when once thy Matter is become truly black rejoyce for this death of the Body will be the quickning of the Spirit and then both Soul and Body will unite into a perfect whiteness which is our Kingly Diadem The end of the sixth Gate THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER Reader IT is an Argument of a noble and generous Soul to be freely communicative for the
wash it with Salt and again do heat it and grind it this I repeat to the full cleansing it from all manner of Faeces 9. A threefold tryal of the goodness of the Prepared Mercury TAke thy Mercury prepared with its Arsnick of seven eight nine or ten Eagles put it into a Phial and thou shalt lute it with the Lutum sapientiae place it in a Furnace of Sand and let it stand in an heat of Sublimation so that it may ascend and descend in the Glass until it be coagulated a little thicker than Butter continue it unto a perfect Coagulation until it be as white as Silver 10. Another tryal IF by shaking it in a Glass with the Salt of Urine it be turned into an impalpable white Powder of its own accord so that it doth not appear as Mercury and of its own accord in an hot and dry place it coagulates again into a thin Mercury it is enough but yet better if being agitated in Fountain-water it runs into small heads or particles for if the grain be in the Body it will not be thus converted and separated into small minute parts 11. The third tryal DIstill it in a Glass Alembick from a Glass Cucurbit if it passes over and leaves nothing behind it it is a good Mineral Water 12. The extraction of the Sulphur from the living Mercury by Separation TAke thy mixed corporal and spiritual Compound the Body of which is coagulated of the volatile by digestion and separate the Mercury from its Sulphur by a Glass Still and thou shalt have a white Luna fixed and resisting Aqua fortis and more ponderous than common Silver 13. The Magical Sol out of this Luna OUt of this white Sulphur by Fire thou shalt have a yellow Sulphur by a manual Operation which Sol is the red Lead of the Philosophers 14. Out of this Sulphur Aurum potabile THou mayst turn this yellow Sulphur into an Oyl as red as Blood by circulating it with the Volatile-Mercurial-Philosophical Menstruum so thou shalt have an admirable Panacea or Universal Medicine 15. The gross conjunction of the Menstruum with its Sulphur for the formation of the Off-spring of the Fire TAke of thy purged best prepared and choicest Mercury of seven eight nine or at most ten Eagles mix it with the prepared Laton or its red Sulphur that is to say two parts of the Water or at the most three with one of the pure Sulphur ground and purged N. B. but it is better that thou takest two parts to one 16. The working of the mixture by a manual Operation THis thy mixture thou shalt grind very well upon a Marble then thou shalt wash it with Vinegar and Sal Armoniac until it hath put off all its black Faeces then thou shalt wash off all its saltness and acrimony with clear Fountain-water then shalt thou dry it upon clean white Paper by turning of it from place to place with the point of a Knife even unto an exquisite dryness 17. The putting in of the Foetus into the Philosophical Egg. NOw thy mixture being dryed put it into an Oval Glass of the best and most transparent Glass of the bigness of an Hens Egg in such a Glass let not thy Matter exceed two ounces seal it Hermetically 18. The Government of the Fire THen you must have a Furnace built in which you may keep an immortal Fire in it you shall make an heat of Sand of the first degree in which the dew of our Compound may be elevated and circulated continually day and night without any intermission c. And in such a Fire the Body will die and the Spirit will be renewed and at length the Soul will be glorified and united with a new immortal and incorruptible Body Thus is made a new Heaven FINIS A Breviary of ALCHEMY OR A COMMENTARY UPON Sir GEORGE RIPLEY'S RECAPITULATION BEING A Paraphrastical Epitome of his Twelve GATES Written by Aeyrenaeus Philalethes ANGLUS COSMOPOLITA LONDON Printed for William Cooper at the Pellican in Little Britain MDCLXXVIII Sir George Ripley's RECAPITULATION I. FOr to bring this Treatise to a final end And briefly here to conclude these secrets all Diligently look thou and to thy Figure attend Which doth in it contain these secrets great and small And if thou it conceive both Theorical and Practical By Figures and Colours and by Scripture plain Which wittily conceived thou mayest not work in vain II. Consider first the Latitude of this precious Stone Beginning in the first side noted in the West Where the red Man and white Woman be made one Spoused with the Spirit of life to live in love and rest Earth and water equally proportion'd that is best And one of the Earth is good and of the Spirit Three Which Twelve to Four also of the Earth may be III. Three of the Wife and one of the Man thou must take And the less of the Spirit there is in this Disponsation The rather thy Calcination for certain shalt thou make Then forth into the North proceed by obscuration Of the red man and his white Wife called Eclypsation Loosing them and altering them betwixt Winter and Vere Into Water turning Earth dark and nothing clear IV. From thence by Colours many one into the East ascend Then shall the Moon be full appearing by day-light Then is she passed Purgatory and her course at an end There is the upâ—rising of the Sun appearing white and bright There is Summer after Vere and Day after Night Then Earth and Water which were black be turned into Air And Clouds of darkness â—ver-blown and all appeareth fâ—â—r V. And as in the West was the beginning of thy practice And the North the perfect mean of profound alteration So in the East after them is the beginning of speculation But of this course up in the South the Sun maketh consummation There be the Elements turned into Fire by Circulation Then to win to thy desire thou needst not be in doubt For the Wheel of our Philosophy thou hast turn'd about VI. But yet about again 2 times turn thy wheel In which be comprehended all the secrets of our Philosophy In Chapters Twelve made plain to thee if thou conceive them well And all the secrets by and by of our lower Astronomy How thou shalt Calcine Bodies perfect dissolve divide and putrifie With perfect knowledg of all the Poles which in our Heaven been Shining with Colours inexplicable never were gayer seen VII And this one secret conclusion know withouten fail Our Red Man teyneth not nor his Wife until they teyned be Therefore if thou list thy self by this craft to avail The Altitude of the Bodies hide and shew out their profundity In every of thy Materials destroying the first Quality And secondary Qualities more glorious in them repair anon And in one Glass with one Reg'ment Four Natures turn to One. VIII Pale and black with false Citrine unperfect White and Red The Peacock's Feathers in Colours gay the Rainbow
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