(5.) Finally, where the means of reconciling discrepancies are not apparent, the same quality of a sound judgment will keep us from the two extremes of seeking, on the one hand, forced and unnatural explanations, and, on the other, of discrediting well-attested transactions on account of these discrepancies.  In the scriptural narratives there are some difficulties (relating mostly to numbers, dates, and the chronological order of events) which we find ourselves unable, with our present means of knowledge, to solve in a satisfactory way.  It is the part of sober reason to reserve these difficulties for further light, not to set aside, in view of them, facts attested by irrefragable proof.

Nothing in the evangelic record is more certain, for example, than the fact of our Lord’s resurrection.  Yet to harmonize the four accounts which we have of it in all their details is a work of extreme difficulty.  “Supposing us to be acquainted with every thing said and done, in its order and exactness, we should doubtless be able to reconcile, or account for, the present forms of the narratives; but not having this key to the harmonizing of them, attempts to do so in minute particulars carry no certainty with them.”  Alford on Matt. 28:1-10.  The same general principle applies to other difficulties—­in the Old Testament, that respecting the duration of the sojourn in Egypt, and other chronological questions; in the New, that of the two genealogies given of our Lord by Matthew and Luke, that of the day when our Lord ate the passover with his disciples, etc.  See further in Chaps. 19, Nos. 6 and 8; 20, No. 22; 29, Nos. 8-10.

8.  In bringing this chapter to a conclusion, we add a few words on the office of reason in the interpretation of Scripture.  It is admitted by all that we have certain primitive intuitions which lie at the foundation of all knowledge.  That an immutable obligation, for example, rests on all men to be truthful, just, benevolent, and grateful, is a truth which we see by the direct light of conscience.  There are certain moral axioms, also, outside of the direct sphere of conscience, which shine by their own light.  Such is that fundamental truth of theology thus announced by the apostle John:  “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5); where light and darkness are both taken in a moral sense, as the context shows; and thus by the apostle James:  “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (Jas. 1:13); and thus, ages before, by Moses:  “He is the Rock, his work is perfect:  for all his ways are judgment:  a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deut. 32:4); and still earlier by Abraham:  “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25).  We are sure that no declaration of God’s word, properly interpreted, will contradict these necessary and universal convictions.  But there are many weighty truths that lie wholly above the sphere of