James Ussher, Covenant Theology, and Theological Contexts

This chapter outlines the arguments of the book and sets them within the context of the expanding scholarly interest in both James Ussher and Reformed covenant theology. This chapter surveys the secondary literature on Ussher from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, then describes the major arguments about the history of covenant theology and situates Ussher in the context of the development and failure of the Reformation in Ireland by describing the historical circumstances and surveying the major literature about the Irish Reformation. The last major section addresses some of the complexities in authorship, dating, and origin for some of the primary sources from Ussher’s corpus.

The Covenant of Works and Christology

This chapter examines James Ussher’s covenantal framework in reference to Christology. He emphasized Christ as the solution to Adam’s failure in the covenant of works. Ussher drew on ancient and medieval doctrines of Christological recapitulation from Irenaeus of Lyons and Anselm of Canterbury as he explained Christ’s work. Ussher reframed Christological recapitulation in connection to the covenant of works, which further demonstrates the underlying catholicity of the covenant of works and shows how Ussher, like other Reformed theologians, used the covenant of works to integrate their understanding of other essential points of the Christian faith.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter summarizes the arguments of the entire book and draws together the implications for understanding Ussher and his relationship to early modern theology more broadly. It highlights the difficulties in analyzing Reformed theology after the Restoration, but it demonstrates that prior to the Restoration Ussher was clearly a major figure in the theological development of the Irish and English churches. Ussher’s relationship to puritanism is examined in light of the investigative results detailed throughout the book, and new directions are suggested for future research in Ussher studies and in studies of puritanism and conformity generally.

The Covenant of Works and the Doctrines of Salvation

This chapter ties together lingering threads of argument by showing how Ussher used the covenant of works to explain various aspects of salvation. He used this covenant as a premise for preaching, in that the law showed sinners their need for salvation before the gospel was presented. The covenant of works explains how Christ’s obedience needed to be and could be imputed to believers. This covenant also provided a framework to explain how the law relates to sanctification. These discussions are situated within the broader historical context of debates between puritans and Laudians and the English civil war.

Introduction

This introduction briefly outlines the major themes that run throughout this book and provides an opening rationale for the methodological focus upon manuscript sources. The purpose of this section is to explain in a compact way how this book argues that James Ussher formulated the doctrine of the covenant of works and used it to integrate various aspects of his theology. The methodological section highlights the importance of manuscript sources and archival work for the historical discipline in the modern age.

The Content of the Covenant of Works

This chapter outlines definitional issues concerning Ussher’s doctrine of the covenant of works, showing the convergence of various strands of doctrinal thinking into one complex doctrine. This chapter surveys the components of Ussher’s covenant of works and indicates why, as an integration of foundational doctrines, it could ground other doctrines. Ussher built his doctrine of the covenant of works on the foundational premises of the natural law, God’s initial eschatological purposes for creation, and the centrality of Adam’s representative role, and these premises show how deeply catholic his formulation of this doctrine was. The natural law formed the terms of the covenant of works, and if Adam had met them, he would have been rewarded with eternal life. This chapter shows how Ussher shaped his doctrinal formulation specifically to refute the claims of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland.

The Covenant of Works and Predestination

This chapter examines how Ussher connected the doctrine of predestination to the covenant of works, and looks at how he shaped his predestinarian rhetoric in accord with the changing political climate in England, with its shift toward opposition to predestinarian theology. The examination of Ussher’s rhetorical changes over time highlights the way that he was able to use his unique position in Ireland to navigate anti-predestinarian policies coming from the English establishment. Older literature on covenant theology argued that there were competing strands of the Reformed tradition that emphasized either human responsibility or predestination. The covenant of works, however, was developed to bring those competing traditions together. Ussher’s connection of predestinarian theology and the covenant of works in conjunction with his hypothetical universalism makes him an important example of the flexibility of early modern theological categories that defies older assessments.

Developing and Debating the Covenant of Works

Whereas Chapter 2 dealt primarily with the relationship between Ussher’s doctrine of the covenant of works and the broader Christian tradition, this chapter examines how he developed his view in relation to more proximate Reformed theologians and their discussions specifically about the covenant of works. This chapter analyzes how the theologians whom Ussher cited as having written works important to his own thinking developed the concept of the covenant of works. This emphasis on Ussher’s connection to his identified sources illustrates how he adopted and modified previous arguments about the covenant of works. It also gives insight into how theologians built their doctrines on differing assumptions from older traditions, depending on whether they tended to lean more Thomist or more Scotist.