Compare: 'A confidence in their owne strengths, a sacrificing to their own Nets, an attributing of their securitie to their own wisedome or power, may also retard the cause of God.' Sermons, Judges xv. 20 (1622).
'And though some of the Fathers pared somewhat too neare the quick in this point, yet it was not as in the Romane Church, to lay snares, and spread nets for gain.' Sermons 80. 22. 216.
'The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of comfort comes to him' (the courtier) 'but hee will die in his old religion, which is to sacrifice to his owne Nets, by which his portion is plenteous.' Sermons 80. 70. 714.
The image of the net is probably derived from Jeremiah v. 26: 'For among my people are found wicked men; they lay wait as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.' Compare also: 'he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor when he draweth him into his net.' Psalm x. 9.
Pages 310-11, ll. 381-400. Compare: 'Amongst naturall Creatures, because howsoever they differ in bignesse, yet they have some proportion to one another, we consider that some very little creatures, contemptible in themselves, are yet called enemies to great creatures, as the Mouse is to the Elephant.' Sermons 50. 40. 372. 'How great an Elephant, how small a Mouse destroys.' Devotions, p. 284.
ll. 405-6.
Who in that trade, of Church, and kingdomes, there
Was the first type.
The 1635 punctuation of this passage is right, though it is better to drop the comma after 'Kingdoms' and obviate ambiguity. The trade is the shepherd's; in it Abel is type both of Church and Kingdom, Emperor and Pope. As a type of Christ Donne refers to Abel in The Litanie, p. [341], l. 86.
Page 312, l. 419. Nor 〈make〉 resist. I have substituted 'make' for the 'much' of the editions, confident that it is the right reading and explains the vacillation of the MSS. The proper alternative to 'show' is 'make'. The error arose from the obsolescence of 'resist' used as a noun. But the O.E.D. cites from Lodge, Forbonius and Priscilla (1585), 'I make no resist in this my loving torment', and other examples dated 1608 and 1630. Donne is fond of verbal nouns retaining the form of the verb unchanged.