the things of God, we are praying for _something else_.[38] For prayer
is but the desire of the soul. Our imaginations and desires are,
therefore, the greatest realities we have, and we should look closely to
what they are.[39]

It is essential to the understanding of Law, as of Boehme, to remember
his belief in the reality and actuality of the oneness of nature and of
law.[40] Nature is God's great Book of Revelation, for it is nothing
else but God's own outward manifestation of what He inwardly is, and can
do.... The mysteries of religion, therefore, are no higher, nor deeper
than the mysteries of nature.[41] God Himself is subject to this law.
There is no question of God's mercy or of His wrath,[42] for it is an
eternal principle that we can only receive what we are capable of
receiving; and to ask why one person gains no help from the mercy and
goodness of God while another does gain help is "like asking why the
refreshing dew of heaven does not do that to the flint which it does to
the vegetable plant."[43]

Self-denial, or mortification of the flesh is not a thing imposed upon
us by the mere will of God: considered in themselves they have nothing
of goodness or holiness, but they have their ground and reason in the
nature of the thing, and are as "absolutely necessary to make way for
the new birth, as the death of the husk and gross part of the grain is
necessary to make way for its vegetable life."[44]

These views are clear enough, but the more mystical ones, such as those
which Law and Boehme held, for instance, about fire, can only be
understood in the light of this living unity throughout nature,
humanity, and divinity.