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aising the filth from the very bottom, so that all becomes like to a troubledGlass of ink, or melting boiling Pitch.After this blackness, which shall endure for a long and tedious time, thoushalt see various and glorious colours to succeed, such as thou never hastseen; for all the colours that the mind of man possibly can imagine, shallthen present themselves to view, which shall be an evident token to thee,that the moist and dark Dominion of the Woman doth now begin to vanish,and instead thereof the Man beginneth to rule, who first dryeth up themoisture of the Woman, with which there will vanish blackness, and thechangeable colours, and after all shall be fixed in a sparkling dry whitePowder, which is the Stone of Paradise.For in moist Bodies heat working temperate,Engendreth blackness first of all, which isOf kindly Conjunction the token assignate,And of true putrefying; remember this,For then perfectly to alter thou canst not miss.And thus by the gate of blackness thou must come inTo the light of paradise in whiteness, if thou wilt win.In the beginning therefore of our Work, through the Co-operation of heatboth internal and external, and the moisture of the Matter concurring, ourBody gives a blackness like unto Pitch, which for the most part happens in40, or at the most in 50 days.This colour discovers plainly that the two Natures are united, and if theyare united, they will certainly operate one upon another, and alter andchange each other from thing to thing, and from state to state, until allcome to one Nature and substance Regenerate, which is a new HeavenlyBody.But before there can be this renovation, the Old man necessarily must bedestroyed, that is, thy first Body must rot and be corrupted, and lose itsform, that it may have it repaid with a new form, which is a thousand timesmore noble. So then our Work is not a forced and apparent, but a naturaland radical Operation, in which our Natures are altered perfectly, in somuch that the one and the other having fully lost what they were before, yetwithout change of any kind, they become a third thing, Homogeneal to boththe former.Thus they who sow in tears, shall reap in joy; and he who goeth forthmourning, and carrying precious Seed, shall return with an abundance ofincrease, with their hands filled with sheaves, and their mouths with thepraises of the Lord: thus the chosen or redeemed of the Lord shall return161