Here is James Ussher from his A Body Of Divinity: Being the Sum and Substance of the Christian Religion, answering whether or not people can be "saved without hearing of the Word?":
“Yes. For first, children which are within the Covenant, have the Spirit of God, without the ordinary means of the Word and Sacraments (Matthew 2; Romans 8:9, 14). Secondly, some also of age in places where these means are not to be had. Thirdly, some also which live in places where such means are, yet have not capacity to understand them; as some natural fools, mad men, or deaf born, to show that God is not tied to means.”
James Ussher denies that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God to salvation for everyone believing (Romans 1:16). He presents some supposed instances where God does not glorify Himself in the hearts of His people (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:6).
Regarding Ussher’s “deaf born.” Obviously there are other ways of “hearing” than through the physical ears. If any unregenerate elect persons are deaf born, then God the Holy Spirit can cause them to “hear” the voice of the Son of God by reading the written or preached Word (John 5:24-25; Romans 10:14-17).
“How then may they call on One into whom they have not believed? And how may they believe One of whom they have not heard? And how may they hear without preaching? And how may they preach if they are not sent? Even as it has been written, How beautiful the feet of those preaching the gospel of peace, of those preaching the gospel of good things. But not all obeyed the gospel, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? Then faith is of hearing, and hearing through the Word of God” (Romans 10:14-17).
Ussher completely obliterates Paul’s argument in Romans 10:14-17 by smashing the links in its logically rhetorical chain. Ussher contorts Paul’s beautifully sound conclusion into a grotesque non sequitur with this pernicious and detestable caveat: “Then faith is [ORDINARILY] of hearing, and hearing [IS ORDINARILY] through the Word of God.”
