This book sets out to provide the first substantial study of Richard Hooker's moral theology, building on shorter studies of his work over the years. Joyce approaches her subject carefully, first looking at past scholarship, the historical context, Hooker's use of rhetoric, his theological anthropology and his approach to Scripture. Her analysis of his use of irony is excellent, and she shows a real understanding of how he uses it and other rhetorical devices to shape his readers’ perceptions in Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity. She makes out a strong case for the enduring influence of Aquinas on his work (even if I continue to remain something of a sceptic), while asserting that Hooker was by no means slavish in what he adopted. For the most part she effectively equates Hooker's Thomism with an hostility to the Reformed tradition; Hooker's pointed critiques of Calvin are similarly interpreted. This leaves her open to the charge of overlooking Reformed Thomists like Peter Martyr Vermigli and Jerome Zanchi, even though I think her argument could be adapted to address this problem. There is, though, something curiously old-fashioned at times about her description of Hooker's attacks on disciplinarian Puritanism and the Magisterial Reformers. Does she agree with John F. H. New that in so doing Hooker was defending what we might now call the conformist position, rather than with Peter Lake that Hooker was an innovator, attacking mainstream Elizabethan Reformed positions under the cloak of an attack on Puritanism? Joyce rather fudges the whole question, despite a clear awareness of the issue. Her study of his soteriology would have benefited from more recent criticism. In the central chapters she notes the sophistication of Hooker's scriptural exegesis, and controversially argues that although he asserts the supremacy of the Bible as a source for the Christian life, in practice the role that he assigns to Scripture in his exposition of the moral life is essentially ancillary to the law of reason. This would certainly underscore the rationalistic side of Hooker's theology. She makes much of Hooker's idea that if the ends and reason for which God made a law remain the same, then moral law is immutable, seeing in the converse of this a potential flexibility in Hooker's position. Perhaps as human understanding expands and develops then certain moral laws may not be so immutable after all. Building on this, she notes Hooker's belief in the importance of equity and casuistry in the interpretation of the law, and the role that considered personal experience plays in this process, teaching us when to make exceptions to a general law. Although she is reluctant to ascribe to Hooker the central role of father of Anglican moral theology, in conclusion she clearly considers him a major source for the tradition, including in practical ministry today.