they placed a watch on the sepulchre, and sealed up the stone at the
mouth of it.

What the event of this case was, the same writer tells us. The
guards saw the stone removed by angels, and for fear they became as
dead men: when they came to the city, they reported to the chief
priests what had happened: a council is called, and a resolution taken
to bribe the soldiers to say, that the body was stolen while they were
asleep; and the council undertook to excuse the soldiers to Pilate, for
their negligence in falling asleep when they were on duty.

Thus the fact stands in the original record. Now, the council
for Woolston maintains, that the story reported by the soldiers, after
they had been bribed by the chief priests, contains the true account of
this pretended resurrection.

The Gentleman was sensible of a difficulty in his way, to account
for the credit which the Jews gave to the prediction of Christ; for if,
as he pretends, they knew him to be an impostor, what reason had they
to take any notion of his prediction? And therefore, that very caution
in this case betrayed their concern, and shewed, that they were not
satisfied that his pretensions were groundless. To obviate this, he
says, That they had discovered before, one great cheat in the case of
Lazarus, and therefore were suspicious of another in this case. He was
answered, That the discovery of a cheat in the case before mentioned,
ought rather to have set them at ease, and made them quite secure as to
the event of the prediction. In reply he says, That the chief priests,
however satisfied of the cheat themselves, had found that it prevailed
among the people; and, to secure the people from being further imposed
on, they used the caution they did.