1651. The 'white lily' was the token of Mary's perpetual virginity. See this explained at length in Rock, Church of our Fathers, iii. 245.
1655. 'For she herself is honour, and, next after her Son, the root of bounty, and the help (or profit) of souls.'
1658. Cf. Chaucer's A.B.C, or Hymn to the Virgin, (Minor Poems, vol. i. p. 266), where we find under the heading M—
'Moises, that saugh the bush with flaumes rede
Brenninge, of which ther never a stikke brende,
Was signe of thyn unwemmed maidenhede;
Thou art the bush, on which ther gan descende
The Holy Gost, the which that Moises wende
Had been a-fyr.'