Take of sericon or antimony thirty pounds, out of which you will have twenty pounds or thereabouts of gum, if the vinegar be good; - dissolve each pound of that sericon in two measures (a gallon) of vinegar twice distilled, and having stood a little while in digestion, stir the matter often every day, the oftener the better, with a clean stick, filter the liquor three times, throw away the fæces, to be taken away as superfluous, being no ingredient to the magistery, for it is the damned earth: - Then evaporate the filtered liquors in balneo mariæ with a temperate heat, and our sericon will be coagulated into a green gum, called our green lion, dry that gum well, yet with care, lest you burn the flowers, or destroy the greens of it; - then take the said gum, put it in a strong glass retort well luted, and with a moderate fire distil a weak water to be cast away; - But when first you perceive a white fume ascending, put to it a glass receiver large, and of sufficient capacity, whose mouth is exactly joined to the neck of the retort, which must be very well luted, lest any of the fume be lost or evaporate out of the receiver; - then increase the fire by degrees, till a red fume ascends, and continue a stronger fire, till bloody drops come, or no more fume appears; - then abate the fire by degrees, and all being cold, take away the receiver, and forthwith stop it, that the spirits may not exhale, because this liquor is called our blessed liquor, to be kept in a glass vessel, very close stopped; then examine the neck of the retort, where you will find a white and hard ice, in the form of a congealed vapour, or mercury sublimate, which gather carefully, and keep, because it contains great secrets, of which lower: - then take the fæces out of the retort, being black as soot, which are called our dragon, whereof calcine one pound, or more, if you please, in a potters, glass-makers, or philosophical furnace, into a white snowy calx, which keep pure by itself, it being called the basis and foundation of the work, Mars, our white fixed earth, or philosophers iron. Now take the residue of the fæces, or black dragon, and sift it on a marble, or any other stone, and at one of the ends light it with a live coal, and in the space of half an hour the fire will run over all the fæces, which it will calcine into a very glorious citrine colour; these citrine fæces dissolve with distilled vinegar, after the aforesaid manner, filter also three times as before, then evaporate the dissolution into a gum, and distil the menstruum, which is now called sanguis draconis, or dragon's blood, and repeat this work in all things as before, till you have reduced all, or the greater part of the fæces into our natural or blessed liquor, all which liquors pour to the first liquor or menstruum, called the blood of the green lion; - the liquor being thus mixed, putrify it in a glass vessel for the space of fourteen days; then proceed to the separation of the elements, because in this blessed liquor you have now all the fire of the stone, hidden before in the fæces; which secret has been hitherto kept wonderfully close by the philosophers. Now take all the menstruum being putrified, put it in a venice glass of a fit size, put an alembic to it, and lute with linen rags dipped in the white of eggs; the receiver must be very spacious, to keep in the respiring spirit, and with a temperate heat separate the elements one from another, and the element of air, which is the oil (ardent spirit, containing a little white oil at the top) will first ascend; the first element being distilled, rectify it in another vessel fit for it, that is, distil seven times, till it burns a linen cloth, being dipped in it and kindled; then is it called our rectified aqua ardens, which keep very will stopped, for otherwise the most subtile spirit of it will vanish away. In the rectifications of the aqua ardens, the air will ascend in the form of a white oil, swimming upon the aqua ardens, and a citrine oil will remain, which is distilled with a stronger fire: mercury being sublimed, and reduced into powder dissolved per deliquium, upon iron plates in a cold place, pour a little of the aqua ardens to the liquor being filtered, and it will extract the mercury in the form of a green oil swimming a-top, which separate and distil by a retort, and there will ascend first a water, and then a thick oil, which is the oil of mercury;- then distil the flood or water of the stone into another receiver, the liquor will be whitish, which dray off in balneo with a moderate heat, till there remains in the bottom of the cucurbit a thick oily substance, like melted pitch; keep this water by itself in a glass well stopped. Take notice, when first the liquor riseth white, another receiver must be put to, because that element is wholly distilled. Two or three drops of that black liquid oil being given in the spirit of wine, do cure any poison. Now to this black and liquid matter pour our aqua ardens, mix them well together, and let the mixture settle three hours, then decant, and filter the liquor, pour on, new aqua ardens, and repeat the operation three times, then distil again in balneo with a gentle heat, and this reiterate thrice and it will come under the denomination of the rectified blood of man, which operators search for in the secrets of nature. Thus have you exalted the two elements, water, and air, to the virtue of a quintessence; keep this blood for occasion. Now to the black and liquid matter or earth, pour the flood or water of the stone, mix them well together, and distil the whole, till the earth remains very dry and black, which is the earth of the stone; keep the oil with the water for occasion. Reduce the black earth to a powder, to which pour the aforesaid man's blood, digest three hours, then distil in ashes with a fire sufficiently strong, repeat this work three times, and it will be called the rectified water of fire, and so have you exalted the three elements, namely, water, air, and fire, into the virtue of a quintessence; then calcine the earth being black and dry, in the bottom of the reverberatory, into a most white calx, with which mix the fiery water, and distil with a strong fire as before; the remaining earth calcine again, and distil, and that seven times, or till the whole substance of the calx be passed thro' the alembic, and then have you the rectified and truly spiritual water of life, and the four elements, exalted to the virtue of a quintessence: this water will dissolve all bodies, putrify and purge them. This is our mercury, our lunary, but whosoever thinks of any other water besides this, is ignorant and foolish, never attaining to the desired effects. – Vade Mecum or Bosom-Book.

Ripley hath these following sayings, in his Book named Terra Terræ l'Philosoph. p. 319, where thus: When therefore you have extracted all the mercury out of the gum, know, that in this mercury are contained three liquors, whereof the first is a burning aqua vitæ, which is extracted by a most temperate balneo. This water being kindled, flames immediately, as common aqua vitæ, and is called our attractive mercury, with which is made a cristalline earth, with all metallic calxes also, of which I will say no more, because in this operation we want it not. After that there follows another water thick and white as milk, in a small quantity, which is the sperm of our stone, sought by many men; for the sperm is the original of men and all living creatures; whereupon we do not undeservedly call it our mercury, because it is found in all things and all places; - for without it no man whatsoever lives, and therefore it is said to be in everything. This liquor, which now you ought to esteem most dear, is that mercury, which we call vegetable, mineral, and animal, our argent vive, and virgin's milk, and our permanent water. With this mercurial water we wash away the original sin, and pollution of our earth, till it becomes white, as gum, soon flowing; - but after the distillation of this aforesaid water, will appear an oil by a strong fire; with this oil we take a red gum, which is our tincture, and our sulphur vive, which is otherwise called the soul of saturn, and living gold, our precious tincture, and our most beloved gold, of which never man spoke so plainly; God forgive me therefore, if I have any way offended him, being constrained to gratify your will.

WEIDENFELD. – Some great mystery of art is here discovered by Ripley, for the revealing of which he fears the displeasure of not only the adepts, but of God himself. Lully, and others, have indeed plainly enough declared to their disciples, though perhaps it may not appear to us being less instructed in the matter, what our green lion is, what common mercury more common to us than common argent vive, what azoquean vitriol is, and the menstuum made thereof; but Ripley affirms that no man ever spoke so plainly of the present secret. The adepts have indeed in their practice described the use of philosophical wine without any veil of philosophy; and amongst them Raymond and Arnold, with some others, have attained to the knowledge of the same, but (to use Ripley's expression in Medulla) how it might be obtained they said not. Wherefore they being silent, Ripley the first, and indeed the only man of all, declares to us, that the key of all the secret chemy lies in the milk and blood of the green lion, that is, that the stinking menstruum (or the parts of it, mercury and sulphur, virgin's milk, and the lion's blood, white and red mercury) being fourteen days digested gently, is the white and red wine of Lully, and other adepts. Nor was he satisfied in declaring this freely to us, but adds strength and light to his words, in making a vegetable menstruum the rectified aqua vitæ (described by Lully in Potestate Divitiarum, and by us in Numb. 31.) of the said stinking and corrosive menstruum, by which one only example he was pleased to teach us, that all vegetable menstruums may be made of the said stinking menstruum. Lully's rectified aqual vitæ is made by divers cohobations upon its own caput mortuum. We may if we please proceed by another way or method: distil the menstruum fœtus, being fourteen days digested, and first will ascend the aqua ardens, then the phlegm, and in the bottom will remain a matter thick as melted pitch, which are the constitutive principles of all vegetable menstruums.