“About the same time were the Hypsistarii who closed with these as to what concerned the Sabbath, yet would by no means accept circumcision as too plain a testimony of ancient bondage. All these were heretics, and so adjudged to be by the Catholic church. Yet their hypocrisy and industry were such as gained them a considerable footing in the Christian world.”[722] The bishop of Ely names these also as a body of Sabbath-keepers whose heresy was condemned by the church.[723] The learned Joseph Bingham, M. A., gives the following account of them:— “There was another sect which called themselves Hypsistarians, that is, worshipers of the most high God, whom they worshiped as the Jews only in one person. And they observed their Sabbaths and used distinction of meats, clean and unclean, though they did not regard circumcision, as Gregory Nazianzen, whose father was once one of this sect, gives the account of them.”[724] It must ever be remembered that these people, whom the Catholic church adjudged to be heretics, are not speaking for themselves: their enemies who condemned them have transmitted to posterity all that is known of their history. It would be well if heretics, who meet with little mercy at the hand of ecclesiastical writers, could at least secure the impartial justice of a truthful record. Another class are thus described by Cox in his elaborate work entitled “Sabbath Laws and Sabbath Duties”:— “In this way [that is, by presenting the testimony of the Bible on the subject] arose the ancient Sabbatarians, a body it is well known of very considerable importance in respect both to numbers and influence, during the greater part of the third and the early part of the next century.”[725] The close of the third century witnessed the Sabbath much weakened in its hold upon the church in general, and the festival of Sunday, although possessed of no divine authority, steadily gaining in strength and in sacredness. The following historical testimony from a member of the English Church, Edward Brerewood, professor in Gresham College, London, gives a good general view of the matter, though the author’s anti-Sabbatarian views are mixed with it. He says:—