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 ...

When they be there, by little & little increase Their pains with heat aye more and more, The Fire from them let never cease, And see that thy Furnace be surely apt there∣fore, Which wise men call an Athanor: Concerning heat required most temperately, By which thy Matter doth kindly putrefie.

NOw thy Bath will begin to be a little more heated and stirred up, to wash this young King, which though noble, is yet conceived in a Stable; for at this time thou hast the Sulphur of thy dissol∣ved

Body let loose, which mixing with the Sulphur of the Water, doth acuate it exceedingly; the one being a natural, the other a Fire against Nature, both to∣gether make an unnatural Fire, burning like to the Fire of Hell, comparable to nothing but the Alcahest.

Nor must thou think that this increase of Fire consists in the blowing of the Coal, no verily, it is a more subtle in∣ternal Fire that we have, and yet that also must be kept constant, and in due order.

For this cause see that thy Furnace be trusty, else thou mayst and wilt fail; for though the Fire of Coals do not effect any thing, yet it excites, and the Water though it be of a wonderfull nature, yet it acts no farther then it is stirred up, and intermission in this Work when it is once begun, will in the end prove fatal ex∣tinction.

Therefore the Wise men have named the Furnace in which they work their Secrets, an Athanor, that is, Immortal, shewing that from the beginning to the end the Fire must not go out, for the

extinction of it destroys the Work; and as death includes all sicknesses, which are steps to it, so an Immortal Furnace or Athanor, must not only preserve the Fire from going out, but also from exorbi∣tancy either on one hand or other; for whatever swerves from the temperate mean, hinders the kind operation of the Matter, which is Putrefaction, by which means the Work is notably retarded and weakned, and by continuance of any ex∣tremity it will be destroyed, but with its due heat it doth putrefie kindly.