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 ...

Separation doth each part from other divide, The subtle from the gross, the thick from the thin; But manual Separation see thou set aside, For that pertains to Fools, which little fruit doth win. But in our Separation Nature doth not blin, Making division of qualities Elemental, Into a fifth degree till they be turned all.

HAving now run through two of the twelve Gates, I am come to the third, which is Separation, which begins so soon as the Matters have been so long circulated, as to begin to hold one of another. This Operation the Ancient Sa∣ges have denominated Division of Ele∣ments, which afterwards they say must be joyned with a perpetual union. This

Separation is by others called Extracti∣on of Natures, and the parts separated are compared to two Dragons, the one winged, and the other without wings.

Artephius, who for Age and Candor was next to Hermes the most eminent, calls this Separation the Key of the Work, which according to him is a Sub∣limation in a continual Vapour, that what is Heavenly and subtile, may ascend aloft, that is, to the upper part of the Vessel, and there take the nature of a Body Heavenly, or Spirit; and what is gross may remain below, in the nature of a Body Earthly, which is the end of our Mastery, to bring the Bodies which are compact and dry, to become a Spi∣ritual fume, which is only to be done by Sublimation, and Division or Sepa∣ration.

So then our Separation is not to be understood, as many foolish Alchymists do interpret it, who have their Elements of which they boast much, which are in∣deed manual, done by handy-work, the Glass being removed, altered or renewed

every time. Nor are our Separations made by filter, or per tritorium, as many imagine, who know not the nature of our Work, and therefore run into such foolish fancies.

Nature then in our Work doth all in all, who as a curious Artificer maketh no confused mixtures, but first of all causeth the moisture to ascend, which because it cannot get out, it doth therefore con∣dense in drops, and descends so long till at length it begin to be acuated from the Body, which is below; for naturally all homogeneal moisture, cohobated on a bodily substance, with which it hath affinity, is acuated by it. Gold then is a Body in which the active qualities of heat and driness, are more than in the Mercury, and the Mercury being cohoba∣ted on it, begins to be a little more Fiery or hot, and then the Exhalations are more Aërial, which before were more Watry, and by continued Cohobation the Water partakes yet more and more of the Solary nature, until at length this heat or Sulphur impregnating the Mer∣cury, cause it to congeal into a new Body

or quintessence, which is after the cor∣ruption of the old Body, which is called the Earth, or Ashes of Hermes's Tree.