Ripley reviv'd, or, An exposition upon Sir George Ripley's hermetico-poetical works containing the plainest and most excellent discoveries of the most hidden secrets of the ancient philosophers, that were ever yet published / written by Eirenæus Philalethes ...

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 be∣ing in the Glass as Male and Female; and in ripeness of years one being more ma∣ture, and by consequent more active, (to wit, the Sun, who therefore is the Fa∣ther) the other more crude (in com∣parison 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 dif∣ference 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 anima∣ted Mercury is perfect true Gold, yet vo∣latile, which by Art may be made to ap∣pear in a fixed form: so then we joyn Consanguinity with Consanguinity, Bro∣ther with Sister, and make them become together Man and Wife. These two by continual Fire do act and re-act, the Wo∣man 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 appa∣rent, the Mercury the Spirit hath it inter∣nally hidden, yet both these are co-essen∣tial each to other, and in that respect they are the only subjects in the World for our Art.