Note 26 — THE REV. JOHN CLAYTON, M.A., THE JACOBITE CHURCHMAN.

To use a popular designation, Clayton and Wesley were becoming Ritualists. Hitherto the Bible had been their only rule of faith and practice; now they began to study ecclesiastical canons and decretals. One of these was to regard Saturday as the Sabbath-day, and Sunday as the Lord’s-day. Christians, however, were not to “Judaize and rest on” (Saturday, or) “the Sabbath-day; but work, and give the preference to the Lord’s-day, by resting as Christians.” On both days might be celebrated the Feast of the Eucharist, even during Lent. If any clergyman was found fasting on any Saturday, except Easter Eve, he was to be deposed; and if a layman was guilty of such a peccadillo, he was to be suspended from communion. At the time of the Laodicean Council (about A.D. 363), public assemblies were held on Saturdays as well as Sundays, and it was decreed that on the former, as on the latter, “the Gospels, with the other Scriptures, ought to be read” before “the Sacrifice,” or Eucharist. (Laodicean Canons, 29th, 49th, 16th; and Apostolical Canons, 56th.)