fwer. How comes he to pafs over all that is faid in the Tryal upon this Point? Why fuch an affected Silence here? It would by no Means have answered the Confiderer's Purpose, to take Notice how that Author has explained Chrift's lying three Days in the Sepulchre; but I can promise the Reader, it will abundantly answer his Trouble to confult him upon this Subject; and, if he has any Doubts or Scruples in the Point, he may there receive Satisfaction. It may be unneceffary to add any thing to what has been already faid; but that the Confiderer may not think himself entirely neglected, I shall give a fhort Answer to his Objection, referring for the reft to the Tryal itself.

It is well known that the Jews reckoned their Time inclufive; in their Computation of Days, the first Day and the last were included in the Number. From one Sabbath to another they reckoned eight Days, and this when the Computation begun at the Close of the firft, and ended at the very Beginning of the second. And yet in this Cafe there cannot be more than fix folar Days and feven Nights; and confequently there is the very fame Defici ency of two Days and a Night, which the Confiderer charges upon the Account given of Christ's Refurrection. Three Nights and three Days, or three νυχθήμερα, were in common Language the fame as three Days: They were'equivalent Expreffions and used the one for the other 2.

So forty Days and forty Nights, an Expreffion often repeated in the Old Testament and the New, was the fame St. Luke

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St. Luke fays, the Child Jefus was not circumcifed, 'till eight Days were accomplished; as ftrong an Expreffion, one would think, as eight Days and eight Nights; and yet the Birth might, according to the known Way of reckoning in this Cafe, be at the Clofe of the first, and the Circumcifion at the Beginning of the laft. Again; The Words after three Days are very full and expreffive, and how are we to understand them? The chief Priefts will inform us.

Sir, fay they to Pilate, we remember that Deceiver faid, while he was yet alive, After three Days I will rife again; and yet their Demand is that the Sepulchre be guarded only till the third Day. He has here the Authority of his own Friends, the chief Priests and Pharifees, that after three Days, and till the third Day, are equivalent Expreffions, and were fo ufed and fo understood in the common Language of the Country. We have then the concurrent Evidence of the chief Priefts and the Disciples, and that too in a Point, which neither of them could mistake; unless you can fuppofe them not to understand the Language of their own People. How the Expreffions, three Days and three Nights, after three Days, on the third Days, are to be understood, Chrift himself has

as forty Days; the first Day and the laft being each reckoned as a complete vunnugor, or Night and Day, though only a Portion of it.

Chap. ii. 21.

The Jews, 'tis plain, were not accurate to the Let

exactly

exprefly fhewn long enough before his Death and Refurrection: I do Cures to day and to

ter in their Reckoning of Time. I fhall give the Reader one Instance amongst many to be found in the Scriptures. It is 2 Kings xviii. 9, 10. And it came to pass in the fourth Year of King Hezekiah (which was the feventh Year of Hofea Son of Elah King of Ifrael) that Salmanefer King of Affyria came up against Samaria and befieged it; and at the End of three Years took it. What can be ftronger or more precife, than this appears to be? Would the Reader imagine it could mean any thing less than three Years complete? And yet it is certainly not fo to be understood; for after the Words at the End of three Years, it follows immediately, even in the fixth Year of Hezekiah (that is, in the ninth Year of Hofea) Samaria was taken. Now it is evident to fight, that if at the End of three Years was intended to fignify three Years complete, Hezekiah must have been in his feventh, and Hofea in his tenth Year, when Samaria was taken.-After all, our Saviour himself is the best Interpreter of his own Language. In the many Predictions of his Resurrection the most ufual Expreffion is the third Day, fometimes it is after three Days, and once three Days and three Nights, in which cafe the Expreffion feems to be varied for no other Reason than to accommodate it to the Language and Story of Jonas. Can it now be fuppofed, that fpeaking of the fame Event, he does not mean the fame Note of Time, though the Expreffion is a little varied? If then one of the Expreffions happens to be clear, the natural and rational Way is to explain the reft by it. Now this Expreffion the third Day has nothing of Obscurity in it, and confequently will help us to understand the rest. Í would fain know what view our Saviour could poffibly have in applying these feveral Expreffions to the fame Event, as implying the fame Note of Time? or what Intereft the Apoftles could have in publishing it to the World, had they not been the common Language of the Country, well known, and well understood by every one, as meaning one and the fame thing? Such a Conduct

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morrow, and the third Day I fhall be perfected; exactly conformable to the Cafe of a Perfon taken ill one Day, being blooded the fecond, and dying the third, as ftated in the Tryal ‹.

Neither Jews nor Heathens of old ever objected, that the Resurrection fell out too soon for the Prediction; or that the Language of Scripture in this Point was not confiftent. They knew very well it was the current Language of the Country, and the usual Method of Computation. The Honour of starting fuch Objections, is referved for the wife Men of this Age; who, knowing little of ancient Usages and Customs, are perpetually from their own Mistakes raifing Objections against the Gospel, and fuch as the ancient and more learned Infidels would have been ashamed of.

But the Confiderer has another Difficulty yet behind, with regard to this Hiftory of Jonas. The Prediction, he fays, was not fulfilled, because the Sign promised to be given was not given to thofe it was promised to, i, e. to the evil and

adulterous Generation.

Where does the Confiderer find the Promise he talks of? I can fee no fuch Promise in the Words referred to. Chrift tells them no Sign fhould be given, but that of the Prophet Jonas. What does he engage for here? that he would

would only have expofed both Mafter and Difciples to Scorn and Contempt. See Bishop Pearson's Expofition of the Creed, and Bishop Kidder's Demonftration of the Meffias, upon this Article.

Luke xiii. 35.

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appear to them in Perfon after the Resurrection? There is not a Word about it. The Promife, if you will have it a Promise, was only that he would lie three Days in the Sepulchre. If this was not a Sign to the Jews, nothing could be a Sign to them, for they had the Evidence of their ownEyes, and of their ownGuards.

But this Part of the Gofpel-Hiftory, the Confiderer will not admit; and he thinks himfelf able to prove the whole a Forgery. Let him fpeak his own Senfe of this Matter; That the Priefts and Pharifees fet no Watch, and that even the Difciples themselves were not forewarned of their Master's rifing again, will more fully appear by the Facts which the Evangelifts themfelves related.

Let us now attend to the Reafons, that are to fupport this bold Undertaking. He first gives St. John's Account of the Care taken of the Body by Nicodemus; who, together with Jofeph, took the Body of Jefus and wound it in linen Cloths with the Spices, and laid it in the Sepulchree.

Upon thefe Facts the Confiderer argues thus. He fuppofes, and very juftly, that when the chief Priests placed a Guard on the Sepulchre, they took Care to fee that the Body was there and then fays, If they faw the Body, they must needs fee how it was fpiced, or preferved for keeping, if it was done; they could not fee one without the other. It is to little Purpose to Ib. f Ib. difpute

First Edit. p. 34. Third Edit. p. 25.

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