l. 242. Her body was the Electrum. 'The ancient Electrum', Bacon says, 'had in it a fifth of silver to the Gold.' Her body, then, is not pure gold, but an alloy in which are many degrees of gold. In Paracelsus' works, Electrum is the middle substance between ore and metal, neither wholly perfect nor altogether imperfect. It is on the way to perfection. The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of ... Paracelsus, Arthur E. Waite, 1894. 'Christ is not that Spectrum that Damascene speaks of, nor that Electrum that Tertullian speakes of ... a third metall made of two other metals.' Donne, Sermons 80. 40. 397.
Page 259, l. 270. breake. Here—as at p. [260], l. 326, 'choose'—I have reverted to the spelling of 1612.
l. 292. by sense, and Fantasie: i.e. by sense and the phantasmata which are conveyed by the senses to the intellect to work upon. See Aristotle, De Anima, iii. and Aquinas, Summa I. lxxxv. i. Angels obtain their knowledge of material things through immaterial, i.e. through Ideas. Their knowledge is immediate, not as ours mediate, by sense and ratiocination, 'collections'.
Page 261, l. 342. Joy in not being that, which men have said 'Joy in not being "sine labe concepta", for then she would have had no virtue in being good.' Norton. Her own goodness has gained for her a higher exaltation than the adventitious honour of being the Mother of God.
ll. 343-4. Where she is exalted more for being good,
Then for her interest of Mother-hood.
'Scriptum est in Evangelio, quod mater et fratres Christi, hoc est consanguinei carnis eius, cum illi nuntiati fuissent, et foris exspectarent, quia non possent eum adire prae turba, ille respondit: Quae est mater mea, aut qui sunt fratres mei? Et extendens manum super discipulos suos, ait: Hi sunt fratres mei; et quicumque fecerit voluntatem Patris mei, ipse mihi frater, et mater, et soror est (Matt. xii. 46-50). Quid aliud nos docens, nisi carnali cognationi genus nostrum spirituale praeponere; nec inde beatos esse homines, si iustis et sanctis carnis propinquitate iunguntur, sed si eorum doctrinae ac moribus obediendo atque imitando cohaerescunt? Beatior ergo Maria percipiendo fidem Christi, quam concipiendo carnem Christi. Nam et dicenti cuidam, Beatus venter qui te portavit; ipse respondit, Imo beati qui audiunt verbum Dei, et custodiunt' (Luc. xi. 27, 28), Augustini De Sancta Virginitate, I. 3. (Migne, 40. 397-8.) If a Protestant in the previous two lines, Donne is here as sound a Catholic as St. Augustine.
l. 354. joyntenants with the Holy Ghost. 'We acknowledge the Church to be the house onely of God, and that we admit no Saint, no Martyr, to be a Iointenant with him.' Sermons 50. 21. 86.
l. 360. royalties: i.e. the prerogatives, rights, or privileges pertaining to the sovereign. Donne here enumerates them as the power to make war and conclude peace, uncontrolled authority ('the King can do no wrong'), the administration of justice, the dispensing of pardon, coining money, and the granting of protection against legal arrest.