From Weidenfelds Prodromus Libri Secundi [Preview of His Second

Book], London, 1687, Latin:

Chapter IV. Will explain the more remote matter of the Art: Oleosum.
If there were no oleosum [oil], the more secret chemistry would be empty
and impossible. Nature knows how to use the suns rays and apply them to
the specific needs of things, but art does not. Here the artist cannot imitate
nature. Therefore, the artist needs a more condensed but less pure matter
for his work. It is sufficient for him [to know] that oleosum is concentrated
light, but covered or clouded over by a most dense darkness. If all this
darkness is removed by his art, he is assured to have something not only
the same as sunlight in its nature and effect, but also much stronger and
more excellent, for it is more concentrated and united. In this chapter will
also be shown that there is no difference in the light which is contained in
the [various] oleosum. The light of whale oil is not of less worth than that
of cinnamon oil. Cinnamon oil is perhaps not blackened with so much
darkness as cod-liver oil, but the artist who purifies cinnamon oil, will
with the very same labor and effort, also remove the impurities of the
whale oil, even if they were there in greater quantity. In medicine, indeed,
I confess that a most fragrant cinnamon oil, philosophically purified, is of
greater virtue in its specification than stinking cod-liver oil. However, I
will easily prove that in alchemical things, both are of the same purity and
subtlety since I shall list more than 80 different oleosa [oils], which have
been used by adepts for their works.
The fifth chapter will describe the remote matter of the art: oleosum
purified of its external feces.
The fact that oleosum is full of many impurities has been taught in the
previous chapter. We now examine what those impurities are so that we
know what is to be separated and removed from the oleosum. Nature
works day after day and fulfils the will of the Creator by its rarefactions
and condensations. By rarefying the bodies, it reduces them into their
anterior matter, and by coagulating the element water, it makes it dry and
into an Aridum [a dryness or dry body] in accordance to the diverse
properties of the applied light. Here the water is coagulated into herb or
wood, there into bone or meat, or into a metallic body. This dry body not
only surrounds and covers the light with its opacity, but is dissolved by the
oleosum itself and received into a quasi-marriage with the light, and
sometimes in such quantity that it could seem a miracle to the
inexperienced and unbelieving. Who, if he didnt know, would believe that
in 16 ounces of the brightest turpentine oil are more than 12 ounces of the
blackest Aridum? In regard to the light or the remaining oleosum, one will
call this aridum feces, but in regard to the water one will call it matter
coagulated by the light or seed of turpentine. However it is necessary that
this Aridum be separated from the oleosum by means of a particular trick,
for by common distillation it is only more tightly condensed, and the light
enclosed in it and
bound to endless darkness. In this chapter will also be discussed what the
adepts have stated about these feces, or about the Damned Earth, etc.
The sixth chapter will describe the next matter of the art: the oleosum
purified from its internal impurities.
Whatever way the oleosum is purified from its outer impurities,
nevertheless its light remains eclipsed, because its original blemish
remains, with which it is afflicted and by which it is made unfit for this
work. It must still be mortified and regenerated before it deserves to be
called the spirit of philosophical wine, or could become an essence of
oleosum by which the other oleosa are reduced into essences. Here will be
reported, what the adepts declared about the method and the benefits of
regeneration.
The seventh chapter will treat the instrument of purification: the
Acidum.
Without Acidity there can not be any separation or purification of the
Oleosum from its external and internal impurities. Acidum [acid or
acidity] is the mother of our stone, without which even the father, sunlight,
is not sufficient. Where the oleosum is named Mercury, there the acidum
is named Sulphur, first born male, fire against nature, and fire of Pontanus.
In this chapter will be made manifest whatever the adepts have stated
metaphorically on this subject, as well as what they have brought forth
 about the necessity and the risk of the dissolution, without which there can
not be any Spirit of Philosophical Wine.
The eighth chapter will examine the mean and tie that joins the
extremes: the radical moisture of the oleosum.
Joining the oleosum to the acidum without destruction of either one or the
other or both, is difficult and nearly impossible for the inexperienced.
Therefore the adepts have been forced to look for a certain mean to join
the extremes. Unless you know it, all your pain will be in vain. In this
present chapter I shall bring forth out of the adepts' writings many great
things concerning the necessity, the nature and the weight of this bond.
The ninth chapter will treat the multiple methods of preparation in
general.
For art has variously gained increase by various attempts. This artist
invented this abbreviation, another invented a different one. Thus, by
observation, art achieved the summit of its perfection. In this chapter I
shall treat about the rise and progress of the more secret chemistry
concerning the production of the spirit of philosophical wine, as well as
concerning the reasons why there is a diversity of preparations.
The tenth chapter will explain the first method, which I call the
method of Lully, using the analogy of common spirit of wine, by which
the spirit of philosophical wine appears to be produced, but indeed is
not.
The spirit of philosophical wine, however, is produced out of the digestion
of the stinking menstruum, and the stinking menstruum is produced only
out of the distillation of a certain artificial gum, which is called Atrop
[Porta] or Portal of the work, as has been shown satisfactorily in the book
about menstruums. In this chapter will be given a description of this gum
Atrop, confirmed and illustrated by the rules, sayings and words of the
relevant adepts, which have been compared with each other.