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 ...

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, Di∣vision, 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 proportio∣ned as it ought to be. Now the propor∣tion of thy Water, is in reference to its internal additional Sulphur, which is ad∣ded 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 dark∣ness vanishing, and the light appearing, after many showrs, before the flight of each Eagle, our Water being thus acua∣ted, 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 Instru∣ment which doth move the Gold to pu∣trefie, 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 invisi∣ble

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 Dige∣stion, or any other errour, of which ex∣perience will warn thee, do not then ex∣pect that the most exact Regimen of heat of thy external Furnace will do the Work.