3. A third reason alledged for calling the first day the Sabbath, is, because it has long been the practice of Christians to call it so. In answering this assertion, it may be worth while to inquire what has been the practice of Christians in this matter. Few will deny, that wherever, in the New Testament, the word Sabbath refers to a weekly religious day, it is the seventh day. When the _first_ day of the week is spoken of, it is under its appropriate title. For nearly the whole of the first century, then, we have the testimony of Scripture that the name _Sabbath_ belonged exclusively to the seventh day. During the succeeding four hundred years, there were large numbers, both in the Eastern church, about Constantinople, and in the Western church, about Rome, who kept the Sabbath. And when ecclesiastical councils, in the fourth and fifth centuries, began to enact laws against them, they condemned Sabbath-keeping altogether. From this it is apparent, that the idea of calling the first day the Sabbath had not then entered their minds. What day was meant when the term Sabbath was used for five hundred years later still, the learned Dr. Peter Heylyn has told us in the following words:--"Wherever, for a thousand years and upwards, we meet with _Sabbatum_, in any writer, of what name soever, it must be understood of no day but _Saturday_." Indeed, if we search all the books which have been written on this and kindred subjects up to the time of the Reformation, we shall not find that the first day was to any considerable extent regarded as the Sabbath or called by that name. Dr. Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, in a late work on the subject of the Sabbath, says, "in fact, the notion against which I am contending, [viz. that the fourth commandment binds Christians to hallow the first day of the week, and that it may properly be called the Sabbath,] seems, as far as I can recollect, to have originated with the Puritans, not much more than 200 years ago, and to have been for a considerable time confined to them, though it was subsequently adopted by some members of our church."