The Chemical Basilica or Alchemical Royal Jewel

The blessedness of this life consists in the knowledge of nature; and therefore, after the eternal, the investigation of natural secrets is the highest good.

The text describes how physicians attain the fruits of their labor and expense, serving the poor as willingly as the rich and powerful without resorting to unnecessary disputation. Indeed, the malice of some of these Medicorum physicians is so great that they secretly and deceitfully intercept the medicines invented and kept secret by the coal-burners (this is what they call the alchemists). They know how to use them with great benefit, yet they destroy and reject the same with loud and magnificent words, forbidding them to the common man as the most harmful poison. Meanwhile, however, they ascribe the praise obtained from such medicines to themselves, without mentioning the inventor, and thus rob the first and true inventors and benefactors of the art of their honor, so that they may rise the more in the use of such remedies and be famous among all people. But to these Apuleian asses a reference to the "Golden Ass" by Apuleius, symbolizing those who put on a false, learned exterior, who present and adorn themselves with a fox or lion skin, access to Dianae Diana's bath should not only be barred, just as Pythagoras forbids placing food in unclean vessels, but also entry into the Chymical Garden, into which they fall with great clumsiness and dig out the choice herbs, where the thistle is quite enough for their unclean snouts. However, since it befits sensible people to despise the slander of fools and godless scoundrels with great steadfastness, just as boiling food in pots does not worry about the flies, so I too am moved by several honest and art-loving people not to turn myself toward those who undertake to make these gifts of God hated by great princes and lords. I will not begrudge the good to the pious and innocent for the sake of the ungrateful, nor close the source of the true and most ancient medicine to those who contemplate the medical writings of the ancients with a more proper and better understanding, put them to the test daily, withdraw from their errors in time, and willingly leave to Paracelso Paracelsus the fame he has attained in the preparationibus preparations and the entire Practic practice.

Worldly physicians do everything for the sake of money and temporal honor, although the end of medicine consists not in great riches, but in the revelation of natural secrets, as likewise in love for the sick. Some lesser guilt and crimes

Although manifold excuses are wont to be not only annoying but also suspicious to judges, yet, because of the injustice of the world in this place and at the present time, when unfairness has gained the upper hand and love for one's neighbor has begun to cool entirely in many, no one should hold that this reminder is unnecessary. In it, no honor-loving Medicus physician is offended, but only arrogant enviers and bondsmen of ignorance are meant, who contradict the truth against their own conscience, to the disgrace of Almighty God and to the notable damage of the general benefit.