Richard Snoddy's book specifically explores “one facet of [James Ussher's] thought . . . the contours of his soteriology,” with particular focus on “atonement,” “justification,” “sanctification,” and “assurance” (10). Because this is a work of historical theology focusing on one aspect of a broader religious debate the reader can, on occasion, be left wondering at what appear to be dramatic shifts in Ussher's circumstances, despite regular reference to Alan Ford's seminal critical and biographical works on Ussher.

Nonetheless, this is a very strong work that draws well on the contemporary documents and sermons to which Ussher was responding, whether with outright opposition or nuanced consideration. The Soteriology of James Ussher is particularly fine at considering the specific components of the ways in which Ussher teased out how salvation could be both predestined and require individual commitment. For Ussher, whose “view on the extent of . . . atonement . . . places him among the experimental predestinarians . . . it is only when the sinner has received Christ that ‘he hath a warrant to interest himself in all the promises’” (215–216). Snoddy makes a strong case that as his thought developed Ussher ultimately explicated faith and assurance in such a way that “the reflective act of faith and the inward search for the evidence of grace became more important” (243). The notes and bibliography are distinctly helpful.