“We find that the Waldenses were sometimes called _Insabbathos_, that is, regardless of Sabbaths. Mr. Milner supposes this name was given to them because they observed not the Romish festivals, and rested from their ordinary occupations only on Sundays. A Sabbatarian would suppose that it was because they met for worship on the seventh day, and did regard not the first-day Sabbath.”[892] Mr. Robinson gives the statements of three classes of writers respecting the meaning of these names, which were borne by the Waldenses. But he rejects them all, alleging that these persons were led to these conclusions by the apparent meaning of the words, and not by the facts. Here are his words:— “Some of these Christians were called _Sabbati_, _Sabbatati_, _Insabbatati_, and more frequently _Inzabbatati_. Led astray by sound without attending to facts, one says they were so named from the Hebrew word Sabbath, because they kept the Saturday for the Lord’s day. Another says they were so called because they rejected all the festivals or Sabbaths in the low Latin sense of the word, which the Catholic church religiously observed. A third says, and many with various alterations and additions have said after him, they were called so from _sabot_ or _zabot_, a shoe, because they distinguished themselves from other people by wearing shoes marked on the upper part with some peculiarity. Is it likely that people who could not descend from their mountains without hazarding their lives through the furious zeal of the inquisitors, should tempt danger by affixing a visible mark on their shoes? Besides the shoe of the peasants happens to be famous in this country; it was of a different fashion, and was called abarca.”[893] Mr. Robinson rejects these three statements, and then gives his own judgment that they were so called because they lived in the mountains. These four views cover all that has been advanced relative to the meaning of these names. But Robinson’s own explanation is purely fanciful, and seems to have been adopted by no other writer. He offers, however, conclusive reasons for rejecting the statement that they took their name from their shoes. There remain, therefore, only the first and second of these four statements, which are that they were called by these names because they kept the Saturday for the Lord’s day, and because they did not keep the sabbaths of the papists. These two statements do not conflict. In fact, if one of them be true, it almost certainly follows that the other one must be true also. There would be in such facts something worthy to give a distinguishing name to the true people of God, surrounded by the great apostasy; and the natural and obvious interpretation of the names would disclose the most striking characteristic of the people who bore them.