Chap. XV. p. 233-4.

"God most certainly heareth them that pray in faith, and granteth when
and how he pleaseth, and knoweth most profitable for them. We must
also know, that when our prayers tend to the sanctifying of his name,
and to the increase and honor of his kingdom (also that we pray
according to his will) then most certainly he heareth. But when we
pray contrary to these points, then we are not heard; for God doth
nothing against his Name, his kingdom, and his will."

Then (saith the understanding, [Greek: Tò phrónaema sarkòs]) what doth
prayer effect? If A--prayer = B., and A + prayer = B, prayer = O. The
attempt to answer this argument by admitting its invalidity relatively
to God, but asserting the efficacy of prayer relatively to the pray-er
or precant himself, is merely staving off the objection a single step.
For this effect on the devout soul is produced by an act of God. The
true answer is, prayer is an idea, and 'ens spirituale', out of the
cognizance of the understanding.

The spiritual mind receives the answer in the contemplation of the idea,
life as 'deitas diffusa'. We can set the life in efficient motion, but
not contrary to the form or type. The errors and false theories of great
men sometimes, perhaps most often, arise out of true ideas falsified by
degenerating into conceptions; or the mind excited to action by an
inworking idea, the understanding works in the same direction according
to its kind, and produces a counterfeit, in which the mind rests.

This I believe to be the case with the scheme of emanation in Plotinus.
God is made a first and consequently a comparative intensity, and matter
the last; the whole thence finite; and thence its conceivability. But we