“1752, March 27.—Being Good Friday, I went to the Old Church,
where Mr. Clayton read Prayers; I think the most distinctly,
solemnly, and gracefully of any man I ever heard; and the
behaviour of the whole congregation was serious and solemn in
every part of the service. But I was surprised to see such a
change in the greater part of them, as soon as the sacrament
was over. They were then bowing, courtesying, and talking to
each other, just as if they were going from a play.”
Did Wesley join in this sacramental service? Was Clayton one of the
administrators? Was there any intercourse between the two?
Another of Wesley’s visits was in 1755, the year in which Clayton
published his “Friendly Advice to the Poor”; and Wesley’s entry in
his journal shows that reformation was needed not only among the
working-classes, but their superiors.
“1755, April 9.—In the evening I preached at Manchester.
The mob was tolerably quiet as long as I was speaking, but
immediately after raged horribly. This, I find, has been their
manner for some time. No wonder; since the good justices
encourage them.”
It was a year after this, when Charles Wesley attended the Collegiate
church every day for a whole week, and every day stood close to Clayton,
and yet the latter would not even look at him.
Here we must leave the Jacobite Churchman. Of his sincerity, and of
his earnest purpose faithfully to fulfil his office as a minister of
the Church of England, there can be no question; but, remembering the
sacred associations and Methodist meetings of Oxford, this priestly
superciliousness was not to be commended, even though his two former
friends were now excluded from Church of England pulpits, and were so
ecclesiastically irregular as to preach in the open air.