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 ...

If thou therefore list to do weel, Sith the Medicine shall never else flow kindly, Neither congeal without thou first it putrefie, First purge, then fix the Elements of our Stone, Till they together congeal and flow anon.

THat thou therefore mayst be sure of thy Work, and not repent thy cost and pains, as many do when it is too late, take my counsel, and know that thy Medicine never can nor shall flow as it ought, except thy Solution be Philoso∣phical.

Know then that our Solution is not an ordinary vulgar dissolving of Bodies, either by Corrosives, or any other way; but our true dissolving is nothing else then putrefying, that is, a destroying of the Compaction wholly with a preserva∣tion of the Species. This Operation be sure to make before thou dream of Con∣gelation, for then thy Spirits will natu∣rally fix and flow together, congealing and relenting so long until they come to

a perfect Powder impalpable, which then hath ingress into all Metals, penetrating their very profundity, and altering them radically.