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 ...

Of this principle speaketh sapient Guido, And saith by rotting dyeth the Compound corporal, And then after Morien and others moe, Ʋp riseth again regenerate, simple and spi∣ritual. And were not heat and moisture continual, Sperm in the Womb might have none abi∣ding, And so there should no fruit thereof up spring.

THis according to the intention of all Philosophers, Guido, Turba, Arnal∣dus,

and others, but especially noble Tre∣visan, whom I chiefly honour; so Flam∣mel, Artephius, Morien, and all Philoso∣phers testifie thus much, namely, that the heat must be so adequated to the Com∣pound, as that in it the Body, through the Pontick virtue of the Water, may have its Sulphur let loose, and so these two Sulphurs mixing together, may bring the whole to rotting or Putre∣faction.

By which putridness a Ferment is en∣gendred, which as it doth volatize all things naturally, so it doth quicken this gross dead Body, in so much that it mounts aloft upon the Fire with the Water, and riseth a new glorious Body mixed with the Water, so that both be∣ing become one together, the Spirit bor∣rows from the Body permanency, and the Body from the Spirit obtaineth pe∣netrativeness, so that both make one coe∣lestial and terrestrial Compound, named the Regenerate Body and Stone of Pa∣radise incombustible. All which is occa∣sioned by the continuance and not fail∣ing of heat, both inwardly and outward∣ly,

by which the moisture is circulated and depurated, without which the semi∣nal virtue would be extinct, which only vegetates by heat and moisture.

And if once the seminal virtue were kill'd, the remaining Compound would be no better then a dead unprofitable thing, which could never be recovered; so that if either moisture or heat within, or convenient heat without should fail, there is nothing to be expected, but according to the Poet,

Cuncta ruent, quae non ulla reparaveris Arte: