But what then shall we say of all those martyrs we read of in the history of the Church, that they have needlessly cast away their lives? For answer hereunto, we are to distinguish the persons that have been for that cause put to death: whereof some have received a calling to preach, and profess the kingdom of Christ openly; others have had no such calling, nor more has been required of them than their own faith. The former sort, if they have been put to death, for bearing witness to this point, that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, were true martyrs; for a _martyr_ is, (to give the true definition of the word) a witness of the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah; which none can be but those that conversed with him on earth, and saw him after he was risen: for a witness must have seen what he testifieth, or else his testimony is not good. And that none but such can properly be called martyrs of Christ, is manifest out of the words of St. Peter, (_Acts_ i. 21, 22) _Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out amongst us, beginning from the baptism of John unto that same day he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a martyr_ (that is a witness) _with us of his resurrection_: where we may observe, that he which is to be a witness of the truth of the resurrection of Christ, that is to say, of the truth of this fundamental article of Christian religion, that Jesus was the Christ, must be some disciple that conversed with him, and saw him before and after his resurrection; and consequently must be one of his original disciples: whereas they which were not so, can witness no more but that their antecessors said it, and are therefore but witnesses of other men’s testimony; and are but second martyrs, or martyrs of Christ’s witnesses. He, that to maintain every doctrine which he himself draweth out of the history of our Saviour’s life, and of the Acts or Epistles of the apostles, or which he believeth upon the authority of a private man, will oppose the laws and authority of the civil state, is very far from being a martyr of Christ, or a martyr of his martyrs. It is one article only, which to die for, meriteth so honourable a name; and that article is this, that _Jesus is the Christ_; that is to say, He that hath redeemed us, and shall come again to give us salvation, and eternal life in his glorious kingdom. To die for every tenet that serveth the ambition or profit of the clergy, is not required; nor is it the death of the witness, but the testimony itself that makes the martyr: for the word signifieth nothing else, but the man that beareth witness, whether he be put to death for his testimony, or not.