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.
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