Wesley Corpus

So this you give as a genuine instance of my proceedings; and, I suppose, of your own fairness and candor! ‘We agreed at length to decide it by lot.’ True, at length: after a debate of some hours; after carefully hearing and weighing coolly all the reasons which could be alleged on either side; our brethren still continuing the dispute, without any probability of their coming to one conclusion, -- we at length (the night being now far spent) all agreed to this. ‘Can there be greater rashness and extravagance’ I cannot but think there can. ‘Reason is thus in a manner rendered useless.’ No; we had used it as far as it could go, from Saturday, March 17 (when I received the first letter), to Wednesday, 28, when the case was laid before the Society. ‘Prudence is set aside.’ Not so; but the arguments here were so equal that she saw not how to determine. ‘And affairs of moment left to be determined by chance!’ ‘By chance!’ What a blunder, then, is that, ‘The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposal thereof is of the Lord’! This I firmly believe is truth and reason, and will be to the end of the world. And I therefore still subscribe to that declaration of the Moravian Church, laid before the whole body of Divines in the University of Wirtemberg, and not by them accounted enthusiasm: ‘We have a peculiar esteem for lots, and accordingly use them both in public and private to decide points of importance when the reasons brought on each side appear to be of equal weight. And we believe this to be then the only way of wholly setting aside our own will, of acquitting ourselves of all blame, and clearly knowing what is the will of God.’ (Journal, ii. 55-6.)