to play the Advocate for the Chymists, but the Umpier betwixt them and
the Peripateticks, expresses himself roundly, thus;[11] _Salem omnibus
inesse (mixtis scilicet) & ex iis fieri posse omnibus in
resolutionibus Chymicis versatis notissimum est._ And in the next
Page, _Quod de sale dixi_, saies he, _Idem de Sulphure dici potest_:
but by his favour I must see very good proofs, before I believe such
general Assertions, how boldly soever made; and he that would convince
me of their truth, must first teach me some true and practicable way
of separating Salt and Sulphur from Gold, Silver, and those many
different sort of Stones, that a violent Fire does not bring to Lime,
but to Fusion; and not only I, for my own part, never saw any of those
newly nam'd Bodies so resolved; but _Helmont_, who was much better
vers'd in the Chymical Anatomizing of Bodies then either _Sennertus_
or _I_, has somewhere this resolute passage;[12] _Scio_ (saies he) _ex
arena, silicibus & saxis, non Calcariis, nunquam Sulphur aut
Mercurium trahi posse_; Nay _Quercetanus_ himself, though the grand
stickler for the _Tria Prima_, has this Confession of the
Irresolubleness of Diamonds;[13] _Adamas_ (saith he) _omnium factus
Lapidum solidissimus ac durissimus ex arctissima videlicet trium
principiorum unione ac Cohaerentia, quae nulla arte separationis in
solutionem principiorum suorum spiritualium disjungi potest._ And
indeed, pursues _Eleutherius_, I was not only glad, but somewhat
surprized to find you inclined to Admit that there may be a Sulphur
and a running Mercury drawn from Gold; for unlesse you do (as your
expression seem'd to intimate) take the word Sulphur in a very loose
sence, I must doubt whether our Chymists can separate a Sulphur from
Gold: For when I saw you make the experiment that I suppose invited
you to speak as you did, I did not judge the golden Tincture to be the
true principle of Sulphur extracted from the body, but an aggregate of
some such highly colour'd parts of the Gold, as a Chymist would have
called a _Sulphur incombustible_, which in plain English seems to be
little better than to call it a Sulphur and no Sulphur. And as for
Metalline Mercuries, I had not _wondred_ at it, though you had
expressed much more severity in speaking of them: For I remember that
having once met an old and famous Artist, who had long been (and still
is) Chymist to a great Monarch, the repute he had of a very honest man
invited me to desire him to tell me ingenuously whether or no, among
his many labours, he had ever really extracted a true and running
Mercury out of Metalls; to which question he freely replyed, that he
had never separated a true Mercury from any Metal; nor had ever seen
89