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When they be there, by little and little increaseTheir pains with heat aye more and more,The Fire from them let never cease,And see that thy Furnace be surely apt therefore,Which wise men call an Athanor:Concerning heat required most temperately,By which thy Matter doth kindly putrefie.Now thy Bath will begin to be a little more heated and stirred up, to washthis young King, which though noble, is yet conceived in a Stable; for atthis time thou hast the Sulphur of thy dissolved Body let loose, whichmixing with the Sulphur of the Water, doth acuate it exceedingly; the onebeing a natural, the other a Fire against Nature, both together make anunnatural Fire, burning like to the Fire of Hell, comparable to nothing butthe Alcahest.Nor must thou think that this increase of Fire consists in the blowing of theCoal, no verily, it is a more subtle internal Fire that we have, and yet thatalso must be kept constant, and in due order.For this cause see that thy Furnace be trusty, else thou mayst and wilt fail;for though the Fire of Coals do not effect anything, yet it excites, and theWater though it be of a wonderful nature, yet it acts no further then it isstirred up, and intermission in this Work when once begun, will in the endprove fatal extinction.Therefore the Wise men have named the Furnace in which they work theirSecrets, an Athanor, that is, Immortal, shewing that from the beginning tothe end the Fire must not go out, for the extinction of it destroys the Work;and as death includes all sicknesses, which are steps to it, so an ImmortalFurnace or Athanor, must not only preserve the Fire from going out, butalso from exorbitancy either on one hand or other, for whatever swervesfrom the temperate mean, hinders the kind operation of the Matter, which isPutrefaction, by which means the Work is notably retarded and weakned,and by continuance of any extremity it will be destroyed, but with its dueheat it doth putrefie kindly.Of this principle speaketh sapient Guido,And saith by rotting dyeth the Compound corporal,And then after Morien and others moe,Up riseth again regenerate, simple and spiritual.And were not heat and moisture continual,Sperm in the Womb might have none abiding,And so there should no fruit thereof up spring.158