The Englishman's Bible Cyclopcedia. Compiled and written by the Rev.
A. R. Fausset, M.A. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—This volume contains the results of a vast amount of labour, far exceeding, we should have thought, the possibilities of the seven years which the author has, he tells us in his preface, devoted to it. The differentia of the book from the class of Bible Dictionaries is that it gives theoretical and expository as well as critical matter. We must not be supposed to be assenting to Mr. Faussees methods of criticism and exposition, when we express our hearty appreciation of the successful industry and accumulated knowledge which have produced this work. We cannot help thinking, for instance, that he has hampered himself in his critical work, by adopting a theory of verbal inspiration which makes enormous demands upon the ingenuity of the commentator and the faith of the reader. There is no question, to take an ex- ample, that in any other author but those included within the Canon of Scripture, the two accounts of the death of Ahaziah, King of Judah, at the hands of Jehu, would have been taken as different traditions. Mr. Fausset of course reconciles them. But their reconciliation costs, we take it, far more than they are worth. Is it well that the name of a Harmonist should suggest the thought of disingenuousness ? What does this question of Ahaziah's death matter to faith or morals ? In theology, Mr. Fausset seems inclined to Calvinism, though he is some- what vague under the head of "Election," and avoids the critical word " reprobation " altogether. He is, of coarse, anti-sacerdotaL But the reader will certainly get in this volume, and that in a convenient shape and at a very moderate price, a work of very great utility.
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