months, but from year to year, even till Jerusalem itself was destroyed; since, I say, all this is evident, what greater argument can, we desire of the truth and integrity of those that attested it? And supposing them to be honest, their testimony must be true, because it was not matter of opinion, in which it is possible for the wisest men to be mistaken, but matter of fact, of which they had certain information from their own senses: and he who says that he saw such a thing, and it is evident that his senses were not imposed on, lies against his own conscience, if it be not true that he saw it.

4. Another circumstance requisite to render a testimony highly credible is, that there is no apparent motive to induce the attestors of it to testify falsely. For whether they are honest or no, we cannot well suppose that in a matter of importance they will testify falsely, without some great motive inducing them thereunto: but as for the witnesses of our Saviour's resurrection, had they not been certain of the truth of it, they could have no imaginable motive to induce them to attest it; for they could never hope to reap the least advantage from it, either here or hereafter. Not here, for their Lord had told them beforehand, that if they would be his disciples, they must suffer persecution; and they themselves could not but foresee, that by testifying his resurrection they must infallibly alarm all the world against them, because the doctrine which they confirmed by it was extremely opposite both to the present religion and interest of the Jews, and to the common theology of the Gentiles; and that therefore, by going about to establish it, they must in effect proclaim war against all the world, and con

sequently expose themselves to the utmost rigour and severity that the wit and malice of men could invent or inflict; which must be a very sorry motive sure to induce men in their wits to undertake the propagation of a known imposture. But perhaps it may be thought they did all this for the glory and reputation of being the founders of a new sect. But from whence, I beseech you, could they promise themselves success? Not from their master Jesus, who, if their testimony was not true, they could not but know was still detained under the power of the grave; not from God, whom, if they testified falsely, they were conscious they wickedly belied in suborning his power and veracity to bear witness to a falsehood; not from the force and charms of their own eloquence or sophistry, for that they pretended not to; not from their riches, for their staves and scrips were all the treasure they carried with them; nor from any authority or power they had, or ever were like to have; for how could such poor illiterate persons as they ever expect to arrive to an authority great enough to contest with all the power and wisdom of the world, which was armed against them: in a word, not from any proneness they found either in Jews or Gentiles to embrace the doctrine which they designed by this their testimony to confirm and assert, that being everywhere gainsaid and opposed by the interests and affections of both; and if their testimony was not believed, (as it was very unlikely it should, if it had not been true,) what could they expect, but to be branded to all posterity as a company of infamous cheats and impostors? So that unless they had been assured that their testimony was true, they had all

the reason in the world to expect that it would prove the most fatal and unprofitable lie that ever was invented or broached among mankind; since it was so far from promising them any worldly advantage, that it visibly exposed them to all the miseries and calamities of human life. And then, if they knew this story of Christ's resurrection, which they attested, to be a lie, they had a great deal less reason to expect any advantage from it in the world to come. For either they believed that religion which they sought to confirm, by attesting this story, or they did not; if they did not, how could they hope to fare ever the better in the other world for endeavouring to propagate a false religion in this? if they did, how could they hope to be made happy hereafter, by telling a lie for that religion which excommunicates liars out of the kingdom of happiness? Since therefore, if their testimony had been false, they could expect to reap no advantage from it in either world, doubtless they would never have been so mad as to assert and attest it, had they not known it to be true: for what man in his wits would ever tell a lie, that hath no reason to expect any other fruit from it, but only to die for it here, and to be damned for it hereafter?

5. Another circumstance requisite to render a testimony highly credible is, that the testifiers of it do give some great security for the truth of what they say; and therefore it is required by human laws, that in all great matters of fact the witnesses should give the security of their oaths, or of some great pledge to be forfeited by them, in case their testimony prove false. But never did any men give greater security of their truth than the witnesses of

our Saviour's resurrection; for they sealed their testimony with their blood, and rather chose to undergo the most witty and exquisite torments, than to recant any part or circumstance of what they had seen and testified concerning it: for of all the apostles, who were the chief witnesses of it, there was only one that escaped a violent death, and he, as the ecclesiastical story tells us, had not been delivered from it but by a miracle. And doubtless those other disciples, who saw and conversed with our Saviour after he was risen, and together with the apostles bore witness of it to the world, did proportionably run the same fate and how is it imaginable, that so many men should all turn so mad together, as to lay down their lives for a pledge of the truth of a story which they knew to be all a mere cheat and imposture? Some men indeed have suffered martyrdom for professing propositions that were false, but then they thought them to be true; but no man in his wits ever died in the defence of an assertion which he knew to be false. But as for the testifiers of our Saviour's resurrection, they did all of them witness upon certain information, and did assuredly know whether their testimony were true or false; so that if Christ did not rise, as they reported, they died in the defence of a known lie, which is such a piece of folly, as doth exceed all instances of extravagance. Suppose that Æsop should have died a martyr to his own fables, or that the author of the Seven Champions should have laid down his life in the defence of St. George's killing the dragon, would not all the world have concluded them incurably distracted? But as for the apostles, their excellent writings are a sufficient demonstration that they were men of

very sound intellectuals, and therefore, though we should suppose them to be so wicked as to love lying for its own sake, we cannot suppose them to be so mad as to love it better than their own lives, as they must necessarily do, if their testimony of our Saviour's resurrection were false. But supposing that one or two of them should have proved so frantic, yet it is incredible that so many hundreds of men and women should all agree together at the same time in the same mad project, viz. to throw away their lives for no other purpose but only to cheat and abuse the world; and that no one of them should be induced, by all the hopes and fears that were set before them, to confess and discover the mad conspiracy. When they began to report the story, they could not but foresee the consequence of it, viz. that they must either recant it, and thereby proclaim themselves impostors to the world, or else lay down their lives for it. So that had they known it to be false, it would have been a prodigy of impudence in them, and folly together, not only without hope of benefit, but within prospect of a certain ruin, to have divulged a known lie to the world, and under the severest persecutions to have persisted in it without the least regret of conscience, or concernment for their own ease and safety. There never was the like instance among men, and I dare say there never will be, so long as men love themselves, and continue in their wits: and to imagine that of the witnesses of our Saviour's resurrection, of which there is no parallel example among mankind, is an argument that we have much more inclination than reason to be infidels. This therefore is plain, that the witnesses of Christ's resurrection gave as great a