21–27 November 1831

In connexion with the great doctrines of. Compensation or Reaction, we get the best in- sight into the theory of prayer. It teaches that • prayer does not at all consist in words, but wholly is a state of mind. Consider it also in connexion with the doctrine that God is in the soul of man, and we shall make another step towards truth. For it is not to be expected that God should gratify any man in an unreasonable request, only because he asks it violently, but precisely in proportion as a man comes into conformity with God, he asks right things, or things which God wills, and which therefore are done. And when he is wholly godly, or the un- folding God within him has subdued all to him- self, then he asks what God wills and nothing else, and all his prayers are granted. In this sense the promises of Christ to his disciples may be understood. Were they not rather admonitions that they should bind, or they should loose, as God would ? And I easily believe that Elijah or Peter or John, uplifted in a rapture of devotion, thought with the mind of God for the moment and so the miracle was wrought.

Read Muller, vol. i, with great pleasure.