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 ...

For in moist Bodies heat working tempe∣rate, 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 Renova∣tion, 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 al∣tered 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 mour∣ning, and carrying precious Seed, shall return with an abundance of increase, with their hands filled with sheaves, and their mouths with the praises of the Lord: thus the chosen or redeemed of the Lord shall return with Songs, and everlasting Joy shall be upon their heads, and sigh∣ing and sorrows shall fly away.