Quotable | thebereancall.org

Greenleaf, Simon

The apostles declared that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin and faith in Him could men hope for salvation. This doctrine they asserted...in the face of the most appalling terrors....

Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, they could expect nothing but...bitter persecutions, stripes, imprisonments, torments and cruel deaths. Yet...all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay, rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only prosecuted their work with increased vigor and resolution....

They had every possible motive to review carefully the grounds of their faith....It was therefore impossible that they could have persisted in affirming the truths they have narrated had not Jesus actually risen from the dead, and had they not known this fact as certainly as they knew any other fact....

If they are supposed to have been bad men, it is incredible that such men should have chosen this form of imposture; enjoining...unfeigned repentance, the utter forsaking and abhorrence of all falsehood and of every other sin. It is incredible that bad men should invent falsehoods to promote the religion of the God of truth.

—Simon Greenleaf, Testimony of the Evangelists