The King Showing Himself to All the World (1725) - Page 8

in the knowledge of how one should decompose the metallic principles original Latin: principia metallica; in alchemy, these are usually understood as Sulfur and Mercury, the building blocks of all metals. / free them from their innate curse / and reunite them in a proper equality and bind them indissolubly. Through this, the imperfect is perfected original German/Latin: perficirt / (made complete) and brought into such a fixed and fire-resistant body / that it may endure all the fire of tribulation / and penetrate unhindered as a spiritual body through all closed doors of nature.

Use venerable nature, says Diomedes, because nature is not improved [by that which is foreign]; do not introduce anything extraneous or alien to it, neither powder, nor water, nor any other thing, because diverse things do not improve our Stone. original Latin: "Venerabili utimini natura, ſaget Diomedes, quoniam non emendatur natura, cui nolite introducere aliquod extraneum vel alienum, nec pulverem, nec aquam, nec ullam aliam rem, quia diverſæ res Lapidem noſtrum non emendant."

Therefore, in this art of ours, one must by no means look toward many things / or choose and select now this / and soon another for the matter of the Stone original Latin: materia Lapidis; the raw starting material used to create the Philosopher's Stone. / much less should time, cost, and labor be spent in vain on unnatural things / because our art does not consist in a multitude of things. (as Geber Geber is the Latinized name of Jabir ibn Hayyan, a foundational figure in alchemy whose writings emphasized that the work requires only one primary substance. says)

For it is one thing, one stone, one medicine, in which the whole mystery consists and hangs, to which we add no extraneous thing, except that in its preparation we remove the superfluous. For through it and in it are all the necessities of the art. original Latin: "Eſt enim res una, lapis unus, medicina una, in quâ totum myſterium conſiſtit & pendet, cui non addimus rem extraneam, niſi quod in ejus præparatione ſuperflua removeamus. Nam per eum & in eo ſunt omnia artis neceſſaria."

And although many-