prediction therefore was, that he would rise on the third day. Now, he
was crucified on Friday and buried; he lay in the grave all Saturday,
and rose early on Sunday morning. But the Gentleman thinks he ought
not to have risen before Monday. Pray try what the use of common
language requires to be understood in a like case. Suppose you were
told, that your friend sickened on Friday, was let blood on Saturday,
and the third day he died; what day would you think he died on? If
you have any doubt about it, put the question to the first plain man
you meet, and he will resolve it. The Jews could have no doubt in this
case; for so they practised in one of the highest points of their law.
Every male child was to be circumcised on the eighth day. How did they
reckon the days? Why, the day of the birth was one, and the day of the
circumcision another; and though a child was born towards the every end
of the first day, he was capable of circumcision on any time of the
eighth day. And therefore it is not new nor strange, that the third
day, in our case, should be reckoned into the number, though Christ
rose at the very beginning of it. It is more strange to reckon whole
years in this manner; and yet this is the constant method observed in
Ptolemy's canon, the most valuable piece of ancient chronology, next to
the Bible, now extant. If a King lived over the first day of a year,
and died the week after, that whole year is reckoned to his reign.

I have now gone through the several objections upon this head:
what credit they may gain in this age, I know not; but 'tis plain they
had no credit when they were first spread abroad; nay, 'tis evident,
that the very persons who set abroad this story of the body being
stolen, did not believe it themselves. And, not to insist here upon
the plain fact, which was, that the guards were hired to tell this lie
by the chief priests, it will appear from the after conduct of the
chief priests themselves, that they were conscious that the story was