The Most Secret Rosary of the Philosophers

Slight foxing and staining throughout the page.

its first matter and nature; that is, bodies prepared for the first origin of their sulfur and their Mercury, so that we may make from them in a few days upon the earth what nature has wrought beneath the earth in a thousand years. Whence, if we had no other benefit from quicksilver, except that it renders bodies subtle to their own nature, this ought to suffice for us: for it is friendly and manageable for metals, and a medium joining tinctures; because it receives into itself what is of its own nature, but rejects the alien, because it is of a uniform substance, homogeneous in all its parts. Quicksilver also is that which overcomes fire, and is not overcome by it, but rests in it in a friendly manner, rejoicing in it. For because of the good adhesion of the parts in the strength of its mixture, namely when its parts are thickened by fire, it does not permit itself to be corrupted further, nor does it allow itself to be elevated into smoke through the entrance of a smoky flame: since it does not suffer its own mortification because of its density and lack of burning. Truthfully, therefore, we indicate that those bodies are of greater