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AND therefore, when we have laid this down with regard to the character
of prayer, although not so fully as the importance of the subject requires,
but as fully as the exigencies of time permit, and at any rate as our
slender abilities admit, and our dulness of heart enables us,--a still
greater difficulty now awaits us; viz., to expound one by one the different
kinds of prayer, which the Apostle divides in a fourfold manner, when he
says as follows: "I exhort therefore first of all that supplications,
prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made." And we cannot possibly
doubt that this division was not idly made by the Apostle. And to begin
with we must investigate what is meant by supplication, by prayer, by
intercession, and by thanksgiving. Next we must inquire whether these four
kinds are to be taken in hand by him who prays all at once, i.e., are they
all to be joined together in every prayer,--or whether they are to be
offered up in turns and one by one, as, for instance, ought at one time
supplications, at another prayers, at another intercessions, and at another
thanksgivings to be offered, or should one man present to God
supplications, another prayers, another intercessions, another
thanksgivings, in accordance with that measure of age, to which each soul
is advancing by earnestness of purpose?
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