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 ...

Our Congelation dreadeth not the Fir••, For it must ever in it stand unctuous; And it is also a Tincture so bounteous, Which in the Air, &c. Moreover congeal not, &c. But that like Wax it will melt anon with∣outen blast, For such congealing accordeth not, &c. Which Congelation availeth us not.

FOr as in our Solution we do not make our Gold volatile as to shew, as Fools may do, but actually it is made fugitive, so as that by no Art of man it can ever be fixt again, but only by that Nature which made it volatile; so also our Fixa∣tion doth make our flying Spirits so Fire-abiding, that they by no Art of man can ever be burnt away, yet it will flow like Wax.

Nor is it fixed in manner of flying Spirits in Vegetables, which are fixed by burning into an Al••ali, for it will never relent neither in the Air nor Water, like to a congealed Salt.

Nor yet is our Congelation a formal

Transmutation of a thing by another se∣minal virtue, for then it would become of a Stony, Flinty, or Adamantine na∣ture; but by its own internal virtue, the Mercury is changed into Sulphur incom∣bustible, yet so as that the Mercuriality retains some of its qualities in a very no∣ble remarkable way, furnishing the Com∣pound with a fusible unctuosity, when at the same time the Sulphur retains that fluxibility with a most noble incombu∣stibility.

So then take this for the Touch-stone of all thy Alchymical endeavours, if ever thou intend any thing commendable in our Art; see that thy Medicine be of an easie fusion, so that when it is cast on a plate of Metal heated, it may enter it, and flow on it like Wax or melted Pitch; yea let the flux be so easie, that it may flow upon Mercury, and enter it before its flight, otherwise brag not of thy skill, for thou art yet in a way of Sophistry, out of which thou shalt never escape, without a more then ordinary provi∣dence of God.