Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, about the third century, gives this explicit testimony to the Lord’s day: “Since in the Jewish circumcision of the flesh the eighth day was celebrated, the ordinance was foreshadowed in the future, but completed in truth at the coming of Christ. For inasmuch as the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, was the day on which the Lord rose and gave us life and spiritual circumcision, this eighth day, that is the first after the Sabbath and the Lord’s day, preceded in an image, which image ceased when the truth afterwards came, and spiritual circumcision was given to us.” (_Epistle_ lxiv., Works of Cyprian, Bremæ, 1690, vol. ii., p. 161) The weight of this testimony is not a little augmented by the fact that the epistle, in which it is found is a synodical epistle, which was sent forth in the name and with the authority of the Third Council of Carthage, A. D. 253. The epistle bears this inscription at its head: “Cyprianus et ceteri Collegæ qui in concilio affuerant numero LXIV. Fido patri Salutem.” With this authoritative statement of Cyprian and his sixty-six colleagues, or co-presbyters, we close our citations from the fathers. The testimony of succeeding writers is equally clear, but it simply confirms what has already been fully proved. And now, with the facts of history in view, as we have learned them from inspired writers and their immediate successors, it remains for us to examine opposing theories of the institution of the Sabbath. We shall endeavor to dispose of this concluding, and perhaps most interesting part of our subject, in two or three articles. Footnote 12: The culpable carelessness of Dwight, Wilson, and other authors, in citing from the early fathers, is nowhere more noticeable than in the case of Irenæus. These writers quote him as saying: “On the Lord’s day, every one of us Christians, keeps the Sabbath, meditating on the law, and rejoicing in the works of God.” There is no reference given to the writings of Irenæus. And for good reason. After a most careful examination, we are persuaded no such passage is to be found in his writings. The mistake was probably first made by President Dwight, whose weakness of sight compelled him to depend upon an amanuensis. “For twenty years of his presidency,” we are informed by his biographer, “he was rarely able to read as much as a single chapter in the Bible in the twenty-four hours.” (_Dwight’s Theology_, London, 1821, vol. i. pp. 91, 95.) Others followed this high authority.