"Having divided prayer into its several parts" (he continues), "I may bring my work to a close. There are then four parts of prayer requiring description, which I have found scattered in the Scriptures, all of which every one should embody in his prayer:--
"First, we must offer glory (doxologies) to the best of our ability in the opening and commencement of our prayer, to God through Christ who is glorified with Him in the Holy Spirit, who is praised together. After this each person should offer general thanksgivings both for the blessings granted to all, and for those which he has individually obtained from God. After the thanksgiving, it appears to me right, that becoming, as it were, a bitter accuser of his own sins to God, he should petition first of all for a remedy to release him from the habit which impels him to transgress, and then for remission of the past. And after the confession, I think he ought in the fourth place, to add a supplication for great and heavenly things, both individual and universal, and for his relations and friends. After all, he should close his prayer with an ascription of glory to God through Christ in the Holy Ghost." [Sect. 33. p. 271.] { 151}
SECTION VI.--SUPPLEMENTARY SECTION ON ORIGEN.
I have above intimated my intention of reserving for a separate section our examination of a passage ascribed to Origen, in which he is represented as having invoked an angel to come down from heaven, to succour him and his fellow-creatures on earth. The passage purports to be part of Origen's comment on the opening verse of the prophecy of Ezekiel, "The heavens were opened." After the fullest investigation, and patient weighing of the whole section, I am fully persuaded, first, that the passage is an interpolation, never having come from the pen of Origen; and secondly, that, whoever were its author, it can be regarded only as an instance of those impassioned apostrophes, which are found in great variety in the addresses of ancient Christian orators. But since some of the most respected writers of the Church of Rome have regarded it as genuine, and deemed it worthy of being cited in evidence, I feel it incumbent to state at length, for those readers who may desire to enter at once fully into the question, the reasons on which my judgment is founded; whilst others, who may perhaps consider the discussion of the several points here as too great an interruption to the general argument, may for the present pass this section, and reserve it for subsequent inquiry.