Selected quad for the lemma: virtue_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
virtue_n	salt_n	spirit_n	volatile_a	987	5	12.2917	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93809	Natures explication and Helmont's vindication. Or A short and sure way to a long and sound life: being a necessary and full apology for chymical medicaments, and a vindication of their excellency against those unworthy reproaches cast on the art and its professors (such as were Paracelsus and Helmont) by Galenists, usually called Methodists. Whose method so adored, is examined, and their art weighed in the ballance of sound reason and true philosophy, and are found too light in reference to their promises, and their patients expectation. The remedy of which defects is taught, and effectual medicaments discovered for the effectual cure of all both acute and chronical diseases. / By George Starkey, a philosopher made by the fire, and a professor of that medicine which is real and not histrionical.	Starkey, George, 1627-1665.; Helmont, Franciscus Mercurius van, 1614-1699.	1658 (1658)	Wing S5280; Thomason E1635_2; ESTC R13346	111,247	400

Alcali and that but very languid the nobler parts of both Oyl and Salts being for want of union each with other separable in their former nature and qualities There is therfore a way far more secret by which is made not a Sapo but a Salt in form of Sugar-candy liquable in water or Wine and volatile in which are these notable and very remarkable things First that one parts of Alcali will turn two or three parts of Oyl into meer Salt without any the least oleaginity save only a very small portion of the Oyl will be turned into a resinous gumme distinct from that which is salificate 2. This dissolves in a liquor not as Sope which makes a troubled suddy water but as any other Salt 3. This being boyled to a Cuticle will shoot like to any other Salt tincted according to the Concretes colour 4. The sharpnesse of the Salt is totally mortified and it becomes so mild as not to offend the mouth though taken alone 5. The Oyls though hot and of a very acute taste yet they retain only so much raste and smell as is inseparable from the vita media so that the medicine is temperature diuretick and insensibly Diaphoretick 6. This Salt thus made is totally volatile without leaving any fixed Salt in the Caput mortuum 7. This may be done perfectly in ten weeks or lesse in very great quatity provided it be according to Helmont's order done sine aquâ occuliâ artificiosâ circulatione or to speak plainly that the digestion be made in cintro profunditatis matiria 8. The heat required ought never to exceed the heat of the Sunne in the Spring that is according to the manner of Helmont's Essences in which heat alone by Art the Salt receivoth a fermentall determination from the Oyls and they on the other hand receive the same from the Salt and so is made of both a volatile temperate Salt of the vertue of each patent For from the Alcali it receives a vertue Diuretick and abstensive and from the Oyl a Balsamick Nature by which it reacheth ever unto our Constitutive principles and in the way resolves whatever preternaturall coagulation it meets withall 9. This Salt thus elixerate is volatile so as that it may be dissolved in water and boyled up again without losse of vertue in manner of Cremor Tartari Sal Ammoniack Sugar Sugar-Candy c. 10. By this means the Sulphur of any metall or minerall that may be separated from the Mercuriality and distilled with Oyls essentiall over the helm may be made into the form of an essentiall Salt and that by being rectified with spirit of Wine or with clean water will lose its strong odor and thus may be obtained a Medicine for most or all Chronicall diseases 11. This Elixir thus made contains a communicable ferment to any other Herb which being digested with it dissolved in Wine is by it turned into a volatile Salt except only the Faeces of the true vertue of the Concrete 12. This Elixir is an absolute Corrector of the venome in all vegetables which it mortifies immediately insomuch that Hellebore Aconitum Hyosciam Elaterium c. by bare mixing with this Elixir of volatile Tartar become gentle suddenly and this done without any heat stronger then for the hatching of an Egge and by this Elixir in a short but very artificiall decoction may be made volatile Salts of such Herbs which will not yeeld an Oyl by distilling with water that is an essentiall Oyl such as Hellebore Jalap Briony Enula Campana c. which are noble Medicines thus corrected having besides their own excellency the united vertue of the Elixir which alone is a balsamicall Ens of admirable efficacy in deplorable cases Whoever then thou art that wouldest be a true Sonne of Art learn to use Salts according to the true Philosophicall preparation of them not as the foolish fort of Chymists do by giving them as they are extracted out of their ashes thinking no other work to belong to them then by repeated filtration to make them as crystalline and pure as may be for although they are noble Subjects yet their Lixiviate Acrimony is somewhat hostile and besides this they are unable in their fixt corporeous nature to passe beyond the Vessels of the second digestion and are cast forth by siege partly but chiefly by urine But being volatized they become balsamical tinctures and familiar to our natures and so are easily admitted to have entrance even to our constitutive principles according to the nature of the Concrete whose Crasis in its volatility it doth contain and in their passage they clear the Organs of all offensive excrements and by their gratefull odor they refresh the veins and blot out all forain Idea's that are impressed on any of the viscera Now among all fixed Salts there is none of greater vertue then Salt of tartar whence it hath deserved to be called Alcalium Respublica and among all Oyls there is none for its abstersive nature excells Oyl of Therebinth which is a limpid Oyl exquisitely penetrative and of its own nature eminently diuretick By means of this Oyl the Salt of Tartar is made into a volatile Elixir Crystalline very pure and temperate retaining so much tast and odor of the Therebinth as doth follow necessarily the vita media so as that it may be barely distinguished and that by an acute palate this Elixir is mild without sharpnesse crystallizing like to any other Salt And note that in making this or any other Salt of an essentiall Oyl when the digestion is compleat and the Salt without the least oleaginity will dissolve in water that then the water which is first drawn off will seem a notable spirit which yet is not the spirit of volatile Tartar for that water being saved so long as the eminent taste remains and when the Salt is nigh drie put on it again leaves all its tast behind and is left insipid and so at last distilled away without taste then is that Salt to be distilled or sublimed for the obtaining of Helmont's noble spirit by him and Paracelsus so highly commended And thus courteous Reader imagining your self to be Master of these clixerated Oyls and essencificated Salts for all are made by one rule and therefore learn one and learn all you may desire to know what excellency is to be found in these beyond what is and may be seen in common medicines To answer first the way of making the Salts is rather a common place then a single receipt for make one and make all the sorts of Essentiall Salts so that thus you may commend Salt of Cinnamon Mace Nutmeg Cloves c. for the curing of the Palsy Epilepsie Convulsions and many other rigorous and Chronick diseases But by first cohobating Sulphurs of Antimony metallus masculus c. with an Oyl till they come over the Helm and then circulating these Oyls with an Alcali into an essentiall Salt will behad Medicines truly succedaneous to

Alchahesticall Arcana's And thirdly thus have you a Key by which you may enter the Closet of the most noble vegetable suspending its virulency digesting its crudity besides which there is no preparation comparable to that of the Liquor Alchahest to which this is truly and may be adjudged succedaneous But that is most solemn to wit when the whole Concrete is totally and perfectly reduced into a liquid form with distinction of all its heterogeneities in their severall colours among which is alway one liquor eminently distinguishab'e from the rest in colour which is in substance but little yet contains perfectly the very Crasis of the Concrete this is the highest of vegetable preparations especially where the body is resolved in a gentle tepidity and the Oyl in such Concretes which yeeld Oyl separated from the Mercuriall liquor and both from the Dissolvent and be after in the same heat decocted into a Salt which is their first Ens. However this preparation made by means of elixerated Salts and Oyls although as to the Crasis of the vegetable it advance it not to the dignity of that Essence which is made by mean of the Alchahest yet the medicaments thus made are no whit inferior in vertue excelling them in generality of Energy For the liquor Alchahest in its preparations is separated from the body dissolved and so the Medicament expresseth only the vertue of the Concrete whence it was taken which is more precise and singular but here the Elixir of volatile Alcali together with the Balsamick tincture of the volatizing Oyl is united with the Essence of the added Vegetable as for instance hellebore black or white Asarum Opium Zalap c. whereby it is not only endowed with the specifick endowments of the additionall Concrete but also is ennobled by the admirable Abstersive and in a manner universall power of the aforesaid Elixir by which it is enriched with most excellent medicinal qualities and becomes penetrative and ingressive as Balsamick and volatile abstersive resolutive and diuretick and gently Diaphoretick as saline and Alcalizate and besides this specifically intended and directed according to the particular vertues of its other compounded simple out of which it forms a reall Salt void of all virulency without any losse of vertue by and from which it receives a more peculiar determination For between the Oyls essentiall and Salts Alcalizate there is a fermentall appetite whereby they close each with other radically and in the Centrall profundity each of other which give not a Sapo nor a Collostrum which are the triviall products of erring operators but a reall Salt mild without Corrosivenesse of the Alcali and temperate without the heat of the Oyl which then being of kin to Vegetalls and thus fitted to them becomes a due and proper Agent to salifie or bring to a Sacharine Salt any Vegetall with which it is mixed and Philosophically decocted that is in a Solar heat or rather an an mall warmth wherein in about ten dayes or more as the quantity is the whole substance will be transmuted into a reall Crystallizing Salt in which the media vita of the Concrete only remains retaining the whole Crasis or vertue not in the least diminished and so the efficacy of the Species or Concrete contracts an intimate union with the Salt or Elixir of Tartar volatile and both conspire to the performing of really wonderfull Cures These tincted Crystalls if you put into pure spirit of Wine and digest them in a gentle heat the spirit by reaffusion and powring off as oft as it is tincted will extract the whole tincture of the Vegetable leaving the Salt behind robbed of the tincture by which it may be gathered that the Salt and the tincture are centrally distinct though they have centrally wrought each on other yet not so as to contract an union each with other The spirit of Wine then distilled off in a gentle heat the tincture will remain and is the whole Crasis of the Concrete which is a noble preparation for such Concretes which are Balsamicall and odoriferous where the tincture is desired free from the mixture of the Salts as to wit in such cases where bare refreshment without Abstersion is desired and required Thus is made the most noble Aroph of Helmont out of Satyrion and may be used either the tincture alone separated from the Salt by extraction with spirit of Wine or mixed with the Elixir which I rather approve and choose unlesse in case where the Back is to be strengthned in women afflicted with wasting otherwise the Abstersivenesse of the Saline Elixir promotes the cure for the Nephritis and Stone or gravell of the bladder wonderfully And now my decocting Apothecaries where are you Come in upon the Stage with your decoctions Syrups Electuaries Lochsana's Boles and the rest of your Trinkets and bring your Masters the Doctors with you to plead your cause and to mantain and defend you The Doctors say of me that I am a Mountebank and want method and I say of them that they are Methodists and want Medicaments Not that you want drugges or slops you are confessed by all to have more then enough but yet for all that in comparison to true Medicaments you have nothing that truly deserves to be named so Blessed be God that I am ignorant when it is a sit time to let blood to preserve health when to take it away to restore health when to give poy sons to purge in expectation that Nature being forced to play a desperate game and reduced to a forc't put may winne that by adventure which you by all your Art cannot ascertain her with safe and speedy remedies But this I know namely to cure those diseases by most certain speedy and safe Medicaments which you by your method despair of Your method only teacheth you when your Medicaments are put to a Non-plus to have recourse to such things which my judgement disapproves and therefore my Conscience abhorres my method teacheth me what diseases such and such Medicines will restore and where the disease is more deeply rooted and obstinate it furnisheth me with more commanding Arcana's If the peccant occasionall matter be only in the Concave of the first Vessels as the stomack Pylorus Duodenum c. although the Symptomes be never so violent yet with Abstersive things I undertake the Cure and perform it such is the forenamed Elixir either per se or specificated with any Abstersive Simple The most Abstersive Simple that I ever knew among the whole number of Vegetalls is Opium which of it self is a Narcotick deleteriall venome but by means of this elixerated Salt it loseth all those odious qualities and is a most powerfull sudorisick anodynous eminently and cures all Feavers though never so acute and all Agues yea although Quartans and Autumnall which it helps by continued taking in no long time In the correction of which it is observable that only a feculent sediment is separated and the rest is totally turned into

in the Animal Vegetable or Mineral Kingdome Not to speak of those endemical malignant vapours which infect the air oft-times nor of the virulency of the Pestilence Leprosie c. which oft doth seat it self in the very wals of houses cloth paper c. But although there are several sorts of malignities which are properly so called poysons yet in the common acceptation of the word it denotes such a thing by which either man or beast is destroyed and that either by the eating of it or by its odour or touch not to mention that poyson of the Basilisk which some authors affirm to kill with the sight So that though a man die of the Pestilence or of the Leprosie Pox or the like which all have their specificated poysons yet do we not use to say that such died of poyson the specificateness of the name of the disease swallowing up the generality of the denomination of poyson in such cases Of such things which are reputed poysons some as the biting of Serpents the biting of mad dogs c. are remote from this our purpose such poysons being only in the power of that angry beast that inflicts it and such venomes usually die with the creature according to the Adagy Mortuâ moritur venonum So that in vain should we get the teeth of dead Serpents or the sting of dead Bees or Hornets all their virulency being then extinct Other poysons are which infect man and not beast others both man and beast Of the first sort are Spiders and Toads which Apes Hens and Ducks will eat familiarly yet without any effect of poyson other poysons there are which will not kill Dogs Cats c. which yet will kill men not because they are not also mortal to beasts but the Dog or Cat finding the operation being able to vomit at pleasure escape the danger which man wanting that faculty fals into Hereto agrees that by Sallet oyl given copiously in time and vomit by it provoked many poysons are happily escaped which otherwise would be lethal Those which are mortal poysons in their proper nature do not cease to be mortall because they are sometimes accidentally escaped but are so to be reputed notwithstanding Before I proceed any farther into this discovery I shall lay down a few certain and infallible Rules which may make very much to the informing of the candid Reader of the Truth in this controversie The first is That nothing which is not of its own nature poysonous can by any true Chymical operation be made a poyson Secondly Nothing which is of its own nature poysonous and virulent can by any true Chymical preparation have its virulency advanced but rather diminished Thirdly Nothing is so poysonous but by its true Chymical preparation doth wholly lose its virulent nature without the least footsteps of the same These three Rules though at first they to many may appear paradoxical yet I shall so explain and confirm them as that they may evidently appear true The first Rule at first sight may appear untrue land may by our modern putationers who think they have sufficient insight even in Chymical secrets to serve their turn and to denominate them Artists be thus impugned Do not say they your best Authors in the Science of Chymistry Basilius Valentinus Paracelsus Quercetanus and Helmont all confess that by the Art of Chymistry many things in their own nature not virulent are exalted to become dangerous poysons instance in Aqua fortis Aqua regis Mercury sublimate oyl of Vitriol c. which of things at least not poysonous become most dangerous and lethal To this I answer two wales first of all that it is a misconceit that the forementioned things are become poysons by such a preparation for as for Aqua fortis Aqua regis Oyl of Vitriol and Spirit of Salt-peter or of common Salt they are not poysons but Spirits eminent in activity on which being distilled with the extream fire of Reverberation the fire hath instamped a more then ordinary fiery quality which therefore if given alone burn and mortifie where ever they touch any thing that is vital so far as their activity reacheth yet mingled with wine beer or water may be taken in the same nay a greater quantity then alone would be mortal without the least effect of danger nay rather they become wholsom and medicinal as namely Oyl of Vitriol and Sulphur for the extinguishing the preternatural heat and drouth in Feavers the Spirit of Salt for the ardors of the urine is an incomparable remedy so Aqua fortis is not venomous but diaphoretick if given in wine so mingled that it may only be made acide by it Spirit of Salt-peter is much of the same virtue with Spirit of Vitriol yea and Vinegar it self may be so rectified from 〈◊〉 feces as in a small dose given alone to become morval so Hony Sugar and almost what not But if they were really and formally transmuted into poysons they could not be so diffused but though without any taste or perceptible quality they would certainly be mortal It appears then that many distilled Spirits made by a strong fire as also many fixed Salts viz. Potassh c. being strongly calcined become really deadly that is by being made corrosive but not venomous which therefore diffused in sufficient liquor may without prejudice or rather with much profit be taken which else would be hurtful yea and if their activity be by any object on which they will work satiated they may then be taken alone as Oyl of Vitriol mixed with a proportionable quantity of Salt of Tartar or any other Salt becomes almost insipid and may be taken in ten times the dose which would be mortal in their simplicity So Aqua fortis if it be poured on Silver or Iron and boyled with it so long as its dissolving virtue lasts then the metal preciptated and the liquor boyled up till the Salt be dry it becomes a medicine though not comparable to many Chymical preparations yet not so contemptible as the Galenical drugs As for Mercury sublimate which may be thought to bear the greatest shew of Reason to the contrary of this Rule forasmuch as a whole pound of Argent vive crude may safely be taken when as 3 or 4 grains of it sublimed is immediately mortal To that I answer that there is a great error in the experiment which well considered will carry a clean distinct face from what it at first appears withall For we know the nature of Argent vive to be salivative and of a strangling quality affecting especially the throar jawes and head of him that takes it yea though taken by dose or by fume or by inunction yet it still betraies it self by that infamous operation taking its recorse to those parts forementioned yea though it be precipitated or dulcified vulgarly or distilled into a Spirit or Oyl according the Art of common Chymists by which it hath some other operation as vomitive purgative

I yearly cure more Feavers Agues and Pleurisies then any one in the Galenical way have in nigh twice the time but my cures are too contemptible for the rich Counsel and Medicine in almost two thirds of my cures scarce exceeding sometimes not amounting to a Crown not one in forty rising to above an Angel For many hundreds know and can testifie for me that besides my own cures many both in City and Countrey practise by my medicines to the cure and relief of some thousands yearly mine own practise in some years reaching to nigh two hundred Agues as I can make appear with many more Feavers Pleurisies Fluxes and vomitings of all which scarce five in a year not perfectly cured and those only such who hearing of the sudden effect of my medicines send for some of them and without observing the difference of season of the year expect the same speed in cure with others and not finding the cure perfect although notably abated are discouraged and leave off whose error herein is not to be charged upon the Medicine Nor is it any thing to me of moment or ought it to be to any judicious man that Galenists rashly and impudently rail and crie out against Chymicall Medicaments and yet the most desperate of all in that Art preparable they have ravished into their Apothecaries Shops and have accepted and do own them as sworn servants to their method Which charge if they deny Turbith Minerale Mercuirius dulcis vitae praecipitate severall wayes Crocus metallorum Antimonium Diaphoreticum Stibium c. shall be summoned in to give testimony to their very faces which are medicines unfit for an honest man to use all save Antimonium Diaphoreticum which is a trifle being so oft burnt with Salt Peter till it become an insipid Calx of very little vertue in comparison to wit of that eminent virtue and noble excellency which we boast of in Antimony Therefore courteous Reader do not think that we in commending the noble true Chymicall Medicines do mean these rascall virulent horribel Medicaments but leave them to the Galenicall Tribe ut similes labris lactucas that with them they may fill up the measure of their iniquity and do here attest the supreme Judge of Heaven and Earth that we both abhorre the use of them and dehort all that are wise to beware of them as dangerous poysons For we intend here absolute ingenuity to speak of Professors and of Medicines as they are and not to plead for this spurious venemous Brat because it may seem to be a Chymicall Bastard but we disown it wholly as an off-spring of Renegado and fugitive Apostate Chymists Mimicks adn Apes to true Philosophie but not her legitimate Sonnes the disgrace of Art and therefore fit to be marked with a black note of infamy O foolish Doctors who hath bewitched you that you will not see nor abide the truth O silly and blind followers of these perverse blind guides how long will you be deceived attend I pray you for your own good to him who is ready to teach you better Strange Certainly a deep sleep from God hath besotted the understanding of our wise men since our Princes of Zoan in this one thing are fools though in other things acute enough whom so many lost lives as yet cannot make wise sufficiently to distinguish between reality of truth and an Imposture Wo is me that I am and must be in this thing a Sonne of Contention and must contend with almost all the earth sure it is not for my inward case and contentment but it is even as a fire to my bowels although since it is truth that is to be defended to betray which in a cause of so high concernment as the lives of thousands were so high an ingratitude to God who hath discovered the mysteries of nature to me blessed be his name that I might justly fear not only the deprivement of this Talent but the other doom of the unprofitable Servant the dread of whose exemplary punishment doth compell me thus to bring my Talent in to the Bank and expose what God hath discovered to me to the view and censure of a captious generation of whom I expect reproach disdain and contumelie full measure and heaped yet is there a certain number of the sonnes of Wisdom from whom I shall receive both thanks and encouragement For whose information and instruction fake we shall in a brief discourse so elucidate the nature of true medicine as to make it appear to any one whom passion or folly or self-conceitednesse hath not blinded to be a most safe speedy and certain way of curing diseases which three things are required in all Medicines promised to be in the Galenicall and Pseudochemicall but to be found only in the true Pyrotechnicall secrets So then by this our art of medicine which we commend we know and promise the cure of all diseases accidentall to the body of man speedily safely and certainly and do affirm our Medicines to have an adaequate virtue in them to this end which we shall make good and permit in the mean time our adversaries in opposition to snarle till they crack their spleen And for the Readers information I must give him an account that my purpose is here to give things as in a small Mappe and to represent them as it were in a Land-skip very candidly though concisely very lively though as at a little distance First then let no man expect from me linear receipts for that would be foolish in me to perform and therefore fond in them to expect for I shall not write of trifles but of commanding Arcanaes which require to be discovered in the language of the Magi lest fools and Mechanists bring these so noble secrets into common Shops to be adulterated as all their Chymical fopperies are Which pitiful hotch-potch had its roiginall from rare secrets of Art although through ignorance and misapprehension of dult lazy heads and searchers they are under the same names with those renowned secrets of Theophrastus Paracelsus become rascally venemous dangerous slops as they are adulterately and knavishly prepared for sale and according to the allowed Receipts of vulgar Tyrocinists and Pharmacopaa's they are at the best either dangerous as having only a mock in stead of a due and true preparation as the vomitive Salivative and purgative preparations of Mercury and Antimonie or trivial as the commonly venall spirits of Salts the Alcalies waters and Oyls of Concretes vegetall to which may be added the newfound silly dotages of some particular Sophisters as the Ignis vita of one the universall Medicine of another idle Sciolist the one the product of Soot the other of Mens bones rotted whose rash ventosities and aery promises we reject as apostate Renegado cheats in Art under the visard or mask of Chymistry as Allen the notable Theef is reported to have rob'd in a Coach with his Complices under the disguise of a Bishop with his Attendants Of this

this Subject having in a peculiar Treatise entituled de mysteriis Alcalium spoken largely of the same to which as which I intend speedily to make publike I shall remit the studious Reader for full satisfaction However I shall in this place discover so much though very briefly as may serve for direction to him that is industrious by what he shall find here to unlock many secrets of Nature and those very noble as to the Philosophy of them and usefull as to the application of them unto mankind Know then that Alcalyes are the the fixt Salts of combustible Concretes fixed by the activity of the fire which were before burning volatile and meerly fixed in this act of conflagration In these Salts the seminal vertue is totally extinct which is the proper operation of the fire on whatsoever it can master and overcome so that they have only a Saline Diuretick and abstersive vertue which withall from the fire borrowes a fiery corrosive quality in which respect it contains a little hostility and reluctancy toward the stomack Truth I know many Chymists according to the sentence of Quercetan do hold that the seminal principles are kept and preserved uncorrupt in the fire but I rather Jean to the contrary judgement of Helmont which experience hath often and satisfactorily convinced me of I grant that Alcalies do differ one from the other per genera species since the operation of each Agent is received by the Patient per modum recipient is and so the uniform Act of burning in stones produceth one sort of Calx or Alcaly in Oyster-shells another in Trees another in Herbs c. another and yet this distinction doth not lie in the formal seminal Balsamick qualities of the Concrete but in another quality or other qualities which are determined by the specificated forms although themselves in this act of determination expire and leave the Salt as to the first Alcalizate intention of kinne to all other Salts than are made effectively by Vulcan yet distinguished from all others according to the capability of reception of the Agents activity in the Patient whose specificated form gave the Alcaly a certain distinction in determination although to its own extinguishment All then that remains in the Alcali of the former Concrete is but a very sleight modicum of the magnum oportet and so Alcalies do differ each from other although all of them in their primary intention are of one and the same nature and qualities Hence it is that the Alcaly of Tartar hath deserved and gotten the name of Respub Alcalium since whatever vertue is to be found in any Alcaly may be found in and demonstrated from the Alcali of Tartar For the fire having no seminal power it makes what proceeds from it effectively though not efficiently for the Salt to speak Philosophically doth in this act of Vulcan's fury lay hold on its neighbouring Sulphur and both being before volatile they of their own accord melt together into a Salt and so fix themselves into an Alcalizate Body Hence it is that Alcalies are easily volatized since their generation proceeds not from seminal beginnings but is a spontaneous Larva which part of the Salt and Sulphur of the Concrete assume the better to withstand Vulcans fury as Mercury by bare circulation in the fire will spontaneously assume the larva of a red and somewhat fixed Precipitate This is the processe of this Anomalous Generation yet is the product very noble if especially this fixed body by art brought back again to a volatile substance Which is to be done very successefully by mean of vegetable essentiall Sulphurs that is distilled Oyls to which Alcalies have a very neer nay an intimate affinity which may appear first by the unctuous Apperinesse of Alcalies Secondly by their ready mixture with any expressed Oyl between both which is made a Sope being a neuter from both Thirdly by the greedy mixture of them with Sulphurs minerall which are known to be unctuous and of neer kin to Oyls Alcalies being thus volatized become noble medicines and of excellent use both in their own nature and to the making of other preparations of which I shall touch briefly and so draw toward a conclusion Concerning this operation Helmont hat given more light the any that went before him yet hath he written darkly enough although wondrous Philosophically which as many as understand him with me will don esse I must seriously professe that for night seven years I made about two thousand experiments to this intent but was always unsuccessefull till pondering the words of that old Philosopher concerning this Subject I found my errors and the truth likewise And I do suppose that scarce the hundredth Artist will attain this secret unlesse it be from him only who is the giver of every good and perfect gift to whom alone be all glory and everlasting benediction For it is a rare thing to have any of these secrets communicated in form of receipts or if communicated yet so that much be left out in the direction which without pains study and sedulity will never be attained so I did and so all have done who have been masters of secretes and so I advice each desirous student in this Art to do And for the help of such I shall be as candid as the Lawes of this art wil permit and allow Now forasmuch as I have undertaken the vindication of noble Helmont and the explication of Nature according to those principles which eperience in the fire had taught him I shall from my own experience also further illustate what was obscurely laid down by him in reference to the preparation of noble medicaments And as the fire taught Helmont to understand Paracelsus so it hath also taught me to understand them both and by it must every one that would understand Nature truely and not notionally have his Philosophy regenerated Concerning Alcalies the noble Helmont saith that being volatized they equall the vertue of the most noble Arcana's inasmuch as being indued with an abstersive and resolutive vertue they passe even to the fourth digestion and resolve all preternaturall excrements and coagulations in all the Vessels That they take away all filthy residence which is in any of the veins and that they do resolve all though never so obstinate obstructions and so cut off the materiall cause of all apostemations and ulcers both within and without That their spirit is so penetrative and efficacious that whithersoever it will not reach nothing else will And in a word that as Sope cleanseth linnen so they cleanse the whole body and cut off and cleanse away the material cause of all diseases Their spirit is of an admirable dissolving quality insomuch that it will dissolve any simple Concrete Body and dissolving will be coagulated upon it and borrow from the dissolved Body a specificated vertue which having entrance into the Body will actually cure deplorable and chronick diseases as well as all Feavers This is the