extract Argent-uiue and Sulphur by decoction: frõ which as from the former, wee are also excused. And if we should take one of the seuen spirits by it selfe, as Argent-uiue, or Sulphur alone, or Argent-uiue and one of the two Sulphurs, or Sulphur-uiue, or Auripigment, or Citrine Arsenicum, or red alone, or the like: we should neuer effect it, because sith nature doth neuer perfect anything without equall commixtion of both, neither can wee: from these therefore, as from the foresaide Argent-uiue and Sulphur in their nature we are excused. Finally, if wee should choose them, wee should mixe euerie thing as it is, according to a due proportion, which no man knoweth, and afterward decoct it to coagulatiõ, into a solide lumpe: and therefore we are excused from receiuing both of them in their proper nature: to wit, Argent-uiue and Sulphur, seeing wee know not their proportion, and that wee may meete with bodies, wherein we shall find the saide things proportioned, coagulated & gathered together, after a due manner. Keepe this secret more secretly. Golde is a perfect masculine bodie, without any superfluitie or diminution: and if it should perfect imperfect bodyes mingled with it by melting onely, it should be Elixir to red. Siluer is also a body almost perfect, and feminine, which if it should almost perfect imperfect bodyes by his common melting onely, it should be Elixir to white, which it is not, nor cannot be, because they onely are perfect. And if this perfection might be mixed with the imperfect, the imperfect shuld not be perfected with the perfect, but rather their perfections shuld be diminished by the imperfect, & become imperfect. But if they were more then perfect, either in a two-fold, foure-fold, hundred-fold, or larger proportion, they might then wel perfect the imperfect. And forasmuch as nature doth alwaies work simply, the perfection which is in them is simple, inseparable, & incommiscible, neither may they by art be put in the stone, for ferment to shorten the worke, and so brought to their former state, because the most volatile doth ouercome the most fixt. And for that gold is a perfect body, consisting of Argent-uiue, red and cleare, & of such a Sulphur, therfore we choose it not for the matter of our stone to the red Elixir, because it is so simply perfect, without artificiall mundification, & so strongly digested and sod with a natural heate, that with our artificiall fire, we are scarcely able to worke on gold or siluer. And though nature dooth perfect any thing, yet she cannot throughly mundifie, or perfect and purifie it, because she simply worketh on that which shee hath. If therfore we should choose gold or siluer for the matter of the stone, we should hard and scantly find fire working in them. And although we are not ignorant of the fire, yet could we not come to the through mundification & perfection of it, by reasõ of his most firme knitting together, and naturall composition: