“In France also there were Christians of this class, among whom were M. de la Roque, who wrote in defense of the Sabbath against Bossuet, Catholic bishop of Meaux.”[1036] M. de la Roque is referred to by Dr. Wall in his famous history of infant baptism “as a learned man in other points,” but in great error for asserting that “the primitive church did not baptize infants.”[1037] It is worthy of notice that Sabbath-keepers are always observers of scriptural baptism—the burial of penitent believers in the watery grave. No people retaining infant baptism, or the sprinkling of believers, have observed the seventh day.[1038] The origin of the Sabbatarians of England cannot now be definitely ascertained. Their observance of believers’ baptism and the keeping of the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord, strongly attest their descent from the persecuted heretics of the Dark Ages, rather than from the reformers of the sixteenth century, who retained infant baptism and the festival of Sunday. That these heretics had long been numerous in England, is thus certified by Crosby:— “For in the time of William the Conqueror [A. D. 1070] and his son William Rufus, it appears that the Waldenses and their disciples out of France, Germany, and Holland, had their frequent recourse, and did abound in England.... The Beringarian, or Waldensian heresy, as the chronologer calls it, had, about A. D. 1080, generally corrupted all France, Italy, and England.”[1039] Mr. Maxson says of the English Sabbatarians:— “In England we find Sabbath-keepers very early. Dr. Chambers says: ‘They arose in England in the sixteenth century,’ from which we understand that they then became a distinct denomination in that kingdom.”[1040] Mr. Benedict speaks thus of the origin of English Sabbatarians:— “At what time the Seventh-day Baptists began to form churches in this kingdom does not appear; but probably it was at an early period; and although their churches have never been numerous, yet there have been among them almost for two hundred years past, some very eminent men.”[1041] CHAPTER XXV. HOW AND WHEN SUNDAY APPROPRIATED THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. The light of the Reformation destroyed many of the best Sunday arguments of the preceding Dark Ages—The controversy between the Presbyterians and Episcopalians of England brings Sunday sacredness to the test—The former discover the means of enforcing the observance of Sunday by the fourth commandment—How this can be done—Effects of this extraordinary discovery—History of the Sunday festival concluded.