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ANEXPOSITIONUPON THEFifth Gate,Which isPUTREFACTION.The Fifth Gate Opened,Which isPUTREFACTIONNow we begin the Chapter of Putrefaction,Without which Pole no Seed can multiply,Which must be done only by continual actionOf heat in the Body, moist not manually;For Bodies else may not be altered naturally.We have already run through four Gates, the first being opened, the reststand open at will; so that thou hast need only to enter. The course andmethod of Philosophers now doth lead us to the Gate of Putrefaction, ahorrible Gate, whose entrance is dark with Cimmerian night dreadful withmany windings and turnings.And yet it is a Gate so necessary, that unless you pass through it, you maynever expect to reap fruit from your labour; for without it can be no Lifenor Generation, much less desired Multiplication: therefore saith the Poet,Felices atrum quotguot habere queant.The cause of this death, or corruption or rottenness, proceeds from theaction of continual heat, not so much of the external Fire of the Athanor, asof the Compound within it self; in which the Fire of the Water which isagainst Nature, doth open the perfect Body by continual contrition anddecoction, and so lets loose its Sulphur that was incarcerate, which is Fireof Nature, that so between these two in continual action and passion,151