He came to Christ, he ran to him; and when he was come, as St. Mark relates it, he fell upon his knees to Christ. He stood not then Pharisaically upon his own legs, his own merits, though he had been a diligent observer of the commandments before, &c.
All this paragraph is an independent truth; but I doubt whether in his desire to make every particle exemplary, to draw some Christian moral from it, Donne has not injudiciously attributed,
quasi per prolepsin
, merits inconsistent with the finale of a wealthy would-be proselyte. At all events, a more natural and, perhaps, not less instructive interpretation might be made of the sundry movements of this religiously earnest and zealous admirer of Christ, and worshipper of Mammon. O, I have myself known such!
Ib.
D.
He was no ignorant man, and yet he acknowledged that he had somewhat more to learn of Christ than he knew yet. Blessed are they that inanimate all their knowledge, consummate all in Christ Jesus, &c.
The whole paragraph is pure gold.
being aware of this passage in Donne, I expressed the same conviction, or rather declared the same experience, in the appendix