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Take eight or ten ounces of Lead in filings and dissolve it in Aqua Fortis in double proportion and justified with Salt Armoniack in an earthen vessel with a narrow neck and set in ashes till it be totally dissolved; and there will remain a white matter in the bottom like grains of white Salt, which is a figure of perfect solution. Then pour your matter that is dissolved in the water into a body and set thereon a limbeck and in Balneo, draw away the corrosive water till there remain a dry substance in the bottom, and so you have the body converted white by calcination with corrosive water out of which the Heart of Saturn is to be drawn.

7. The way to wash away and purge the corrosive water from the body. Pour warm water upon the substance in the limbeck and pour it often off till it have no sharpness at all upon the tongue and then the body is prepared for drawing out the Salt.

8. When your matter is well dried, dissolve it again in distilled Vinegar and distil the Vinegar twice or thrice from it and in the bottom you shall have a lucid, clear and white, shining Salt, which is called the Heart of Saturn.

9. Now I come to the practice of the other greater work, that the verity of the Medicine may be found, of which many have made mention in their books, as Raimundus, who called it the Vegetable, Mineral and Animal Medicine. Geber saith there groweth a Saturnian Herb on the top of a hill or mountain, whose blood, if it be extracted, cureth all infirmities.

10. Ripley writ a whole book called his Practical Compendium, of the practice of the Vegetable Medicine, teaching the manner and form of operation; but because he neither set down the solution plainly nor perfectly, he hath been the cause of much error and hath not only deceived me, but all those that followed him, until after a long time I found a way to dissolve Saturn, so that it could never after by distillation be turned into Lead again, which is the choicest and greatest secret of the Vegetable Medicine.

11. But let us hear the words of Mary the prophetess and Ripley taken from her: The Radix of our Matter is a clear and white body, which putrefieth not but congealeth Mercury or Quicksilver with its odour, makes its water like the running water of the two Zabieth (or Zubech) and fixeth it upon the fixed Heart of Saturn. Which words do most aptly agree with the properties of Lead, for if anyone be shot or wounded with a bullet and the bullet remain in the body, it will never putrefy.

12. And also if Quicksilver be hanged in a pot over the fume of molten Lead, so as the fumes of the Lead touch the Quicksilver, it will congeal it.

13. Thus far of the preparation of Lead. We now come to its denomination. They bid us fix the water of Zabieth upon the fixed body of the Heart of Saturn. Now for the exposition of the body for the name of Saturn. Ripley called it Adrop, of which that is made which the Masters call Sericon, the water of Sericon they call their Menstruum. The two Zabrieths joined together in one water are the two Mercuries, that is to say white and red, contained in one Menstruum, that is to say of the water and oil of the fixed body or Heart of Saturn.

14. Isaacus also writ a treatise of Lead. He worketh chiefly according to the doctrine of Mary the prophetess and laboureth much to fix the earth of Saturn and after to dissolve the body in distilled Vinegar, that by the addition of corroding the sharp things his red oil may be distilled, which he called the Water of Paradise, that he may imbibe his fixed earth therewith: which way is much shorter than Ripley's, but the rubification and fixation of the earth is long and uncertain; wherefore I have both forsaken Isaacus and Ripley in making the earth, instead of which I have given the fixed Heart of Saturn.

15. But that the body may be prepared according to this Table and after my intention and the desire of Ripley, we both will that the pil or Water of Paradise be drawn out of the Gum of Sericon (whose father is Adrop). Sericon is made of red Lead; therefore it is first necessary to show the way of making Minium of Lead. Take the description as followeth and therewith the composition of the Gum of Sericon.

16. Take ten or twelve pounds of Lead and melt it in a great iron vessel as plumbers use to do; and when it is molten, stir it still with an iron spatula till the Lead be turned to powder, which powder will be of a green colour. When you see it thus, take it from the fire and let it get cool and grind that powder upon a marble till it be impalpable, moistening the powder with a little common Vinegar till it be like thick honey, which put into a broad earthen vessel and set it on a trevet over a lent fire to vapour away the Vinegar and dry the powder and it will be of a yellow colour. Grind it again and do as before, till the powder be so red as red Lead, which is called Adrop. And thus is Saturn calcined into red Lead or Minium.

17. Take a pound of red Lead and dissolve it in a gallon of Vinegar and stir it with a stick three or four times in a day. Then take your earthen vessel and set it in Balneo twenty-four hours then let it cool and filter the liquor three times; and when it is clear put it in a bottom and distil away the Vinegar when the Gum of Sericon will remain like thick honey; which set apart and dissolve now more Lead as before for more Gum till you have ten or twelve pound thereof.

18. Now give careful attention, for we now come to the point and period of Ripley's error; for if you put four pounds of this Sericon to distil in a limbeck, and from thence would draw a Menstruum as Ripley teacheth, perhaps you would have scarce one ounce of this oil, and some part of a black earth will remain in the bottom and most of the Gum melted again into Lead, by which you may know that the Sericon is not well dissolved, nor as yet sufficiently prepared that a Chaos may be made thereof fit for distillation because it is not yet well dissolved. Therefore in Isaacus there is found a way, resolving this Gum with distilled Vinegar acuated with calcined Tartar and Salt Armoniack; wherefore, saith he, if thou be wise resolve the Gum. But I like not this acuation of the Vinegar as I may call it. I rather choose to resolve the Sericon in Raymund's Calcination Water, which is a compound water of Vegetable Mercury, or fire natural, with the fire against nature, as Ripley testifieth; and it is more verified by Raymund in his books of Mercury, where he teacheth how to dissolve bodies with his Calcinative Water.

19. I will reveal unto you this water, which is almost unknown. Note, therefore, that the Vegetable Mercury is the Spirit of Wine (instead of which we may sometimes use distilled Vinegar) and that the Fire against Nature is a corrosive water made of Vitriol and Saltpeter.

20. Therefore take which you will, either Spirit of Wine rectified (or Aqua Vitae) or distilled Vinegar four pounds and two pounds of corrosive water and mix them together.

In this water thus compounded, resolve half a pound of Gum of Sericon in a circulatory and set it in Balneo four or five days, and the Gum will be totally dissolved into the form of water or oil of a duskish red colour.

21. Then distil away the water in Balneo and there will remain an oil in the bottom which is the Chaos out of which you may draw a Menstruum containing two elements, and this is the true resolution of the Gum of Sericon. In this water you may resolve so much Gum as you please by reiteration.

22. Take two pound of this Chathodical substance and prepare it for distillation in naked fire or sand, and lift up the clear red oil, wherein both the Spirit and Soul secretly lie hid, which Isaacus calleth the Water of Paradise, which, when you have it, you may rejoice, for you have gone through all the gross work and come to the philosophic work.

Therefore proceed to conjunction and join the white Heart of Saturn with the red oil as it is found in the Rosary, candida succinto jacet uxor nupta marits, that is to say the red Mercury to the Salt if you proceed to the red work.

23. Therefore take four ounces of the Salt or Heart of Saturn and as much of the red oil or Water of Paradise, and seal them up in a philosophers' egg; and so soon as they shall feel the heat of the Balneum, the Salt will dissolve and be made one with the oil so as you shall not know which was the Salt nor which was the oil.

Set your glass in Balneo and there let it stand in an equal degree of fire till all your matter be turned white and stick to the sides of the glass and shine like fishes eyes and then it is white Sulphur of Nature. But if you proceed to the red work, then divide your white Sulphur into equal parts, reserving one part for the white work, and go on with the other part, and in a new glass, well sealed up, set it in ashes till it is turned into a red colour.

24. When your Sulphur is thus converted, imbibe it again with equal weight of its Soul, dissolving and congealing till it remain in an oil and it will congeal no more, but remain fixed and flowing.

This then is to be fermented with the fourth part of the Oil of Gold.

We have set down already before of the augmentation in quantity and quality, therefore it is not necessary to repeat it here.

We will now return to the white Sulphur before reserved, that we may set down the manner of the white work.

When you have your red oil or Soul, if you desire to make the white Elixir, set part of the said oil in a glass in Balneo to digest. Then take it out and put it into a body and in a lent fire distil away the Spirit or white Mercury, which you must try and know whether it arise pure without water or not, as you do when you try the spirit of wine. For if it burn all up it is well; if it do not, rectify it so often till it be without any waterings at all; then have you rectified your Spirit, wherewith dissolve your white Sulphur till it remain fixed and flowing as you did before in the red work. Then ferment it and augment it with the fourth part of the oil of the white Luminary or Luna, as you did the red, and it will be the white Elixir, converting imperfect bodies into perfect Silver.

25. Ripley divided the scope of this work into four operations, whereof the first is the dissolution of the body; the second the extraction of the Menstruum and the separation of the elements; the third is not necessary in our work, because we cast away the earth after every distillation, instead of which we use our Salt or Heart of Saturn; the fourth is that there be a conjunction of our Salt as is before described.

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