This demonstration, which might be otherwise omitted, is therefore set down, that it may be known how Gold proceeds from the Sun, and is secretly endued with its proper strength and proprieties, by Chymistry, reducible into that which it was before its coagulation, namely, into a heating and living spirit, communicating its strength and faculties to man’s body. Therefore the Ancients used great diligence in the reduction of gold, in which nothing is found more excellent than the purest and finest spirit of wine made by distillation, and they did not use common gold melted out of stones, or washt out of sand, but purged by benefit of fire, and Philosophically quickened and unlocked, not by help of corrosive spirits, the usual way of vulgar Chymists, but by some water which Nature freely gives without help of violent distillation; by which they manifest that which is hid in gold, and they have hid what is manifest, and therefore they have made it fit for the separation of its tincture from a gross and black superfluous body. For they knew that the compact body of gold hath no affinity with the vital Spirits, therefore they have chosen only the finest part of gold to their Elixir, _viz._ Its tincture, which they have radically joyned with the spirit of Wine, and being joyned, have made them spiritual or volatile, so that neither can be separated from each other in the fire, and being in the fire, are sublimed, or fixed by a longer digestion; and coagulated into a fixt stone, which they count for the greatest treasure in this World. Therefore the ancient Philosophers affirming, that there is not a better medicine under the Sun than it, which is made from the Philosophical union of wine and gold, both by an inseparable recoagulation and fixation; nor without gold can spirit of wine, nor this without it be made a medicine, because gold without spirit of wine cannot be made volatile, nor this be coagulated and fixt without it. We therefore, their posterity justly, follow the opinions of the most famous men, not for their authorities sake, but for ocular demonstration, which is the truest tryal.