12zrjjUXi

to boot, many, yea most of which are far harder (though sooner wrought)than the Elixir, and the Alcahest is a hundred times more difficult; but whatI most honour in that noble Naturalist is, that he did search out the OccultaNaturae, more accurately then ever any did I the World. So that (settingaside the skill of this mastery, of which I cannot find any footsteps in whatof his is extant) I am confident that he was without flattery Natures Privy-Counsellor, and for Philosophical verity might have commanded thisSecret; but God doth not reveal to all men, yet who knows what he maylive to be Master of in this point too.This I speak not to flatter him, who (besides what is evident to the wholeWorld in his Writings) have no other character of him, and to him I am liketo remain a perpetual Stranger; yet could as heartily desire hisacquaintance, as any mans I know in the World, and if the Fates preventnot mine intentions, by mine or his death, I shall endeavor familiarity withhim. But this by the way.To return whence I digressed; our final secret is first to unite the Spirit andSoul of our dissolving Water, that by the mediation of the Soul, the Spiritand Body may be conjoined, and then after several Sublimations andPrecipitations made for that end, that the Body may be spiritualized, andthe Spirit corporalized, so fix together the Soul, Body and Spirit, the flyingand the fixt, that all the Elements (to use Philosophers terms) mayacquiesce and rest in this Nest of Earth, in which all the virtue of thesuperiours and inferiours is contained, both in power and act.From what hath been said may appear, the strong passive delusion that hathtaken many men of our Age, and formerly, who with the Chymist inSendivogius, cannot dream of any other Mercury, then that Mercury whichis to bought at Druggists, which they take and sublime variously to make itclean, and then with Hogheland mix it with Gold, applying all the wordsand saying of Philosophers to this their mixture: but when the time comesthat they should see the signs specified of the Philosophers, there they fail,it may be by reason of something external to the Gold (which it gets infoliating, or the Mercury, which it gets in washing and purging, whichthough it be but little, yet it is enough in heat to give a light Tincture to theSuperficies) they may with Hogheland, see a discoloured outside, which isnothing; for our Operation is not so trivial, that a man had need ofspectacles, and a most clear light to discern it: but it is so apparent, that ahalf blind man would be amazed at it, for our Body, even the perfect Bodyis divided, which common Mercury can never do, though a man blesshimself never so much in his mock-purgations.133