Lord's Prayer,' a course of nine sermons preached at Lincoln's Inn; The Church a Family' in 1850; The Old Testament' in 1851; The Prayer-Book considered in reference to the Romish System' in 1852; and The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament' in 1853. In 1849 Mr. Maurice married the sister of Archdeacon Hare, who had previously married the sister of Mr. Maurice. Among Mr. Maurice's addresses many had express reference to the questions and events of the day. As early as in 1839 he had contributed a volume of lectures on the education question, in which he maintained that the function of the State is to govern, and of the Church to educate, a country; and that each suffers if it interferes with the work of the other. The Warburtonian Lectures of 1846 are preceded by a treatise directed against the "Theory of Developments," by Mr. J. H. Newman. In 1852 the Boyle Lectures were published, and attracted much attention. The following sentences will be a guide to their purport and intention; Mr. Maurice says:-" I propose to examine the great religious systems which present themselves to us in the history of the world, not going into their details, but inquiring what is their main characteristical principle. If we find, as the objectors say, good in each of them, we shall desire to know what this good is, and under what conditions it may be preserved and made effectual; we may then be occupied with considering in what relation does Christianity stand to these different faiths." This may be considered to represent one of Mr. Maurice's characteristic views in matters theological. In the following year a volume of Sermons was published, three of them relating to the Sabbath Day. The author contended that the meaning of the Jewish Sabbath was to be learnt from the teaching of our Lord, who explained the Fourth Commandment in its true and natural sense, and rescued it from the perversions of the Pharisees of those days and of later days. The Jerusalem Bishopric, the right and wrong methods of supporting Protestantism, and the Oxford Controversy in Mr. Ward's time, were the subjects of occasional letters and pamphlets. On the subject of Subscription to the Articles, Mr. Maurice wrote a pamphlet, entitled, 'Subscription no Bondage,' shortly after he took Orders. He maintained in it that the Articles were intended to be guides to a course of manly study in theology, ethics, and literature, and to protect students from superstitions which would interfere with the freedom of their inquiries. Since the doctrine of Mr. Disraeli has gone forth, that the clergy are bound by their subscription not to be free inquirers, Mr. Maurice has declared that on his principles it is untenable, and should be abandoned. In 1853 appeared Theological Essays,' the volume which, of all others, has provoked the greatest amount of hostile criticism, and has been accompanied by the most serious consequences. In this work Mr. Maurice contended against the ordinary doctrine of the endlessness of Future Punishment, as inconsistent with the Gospel of Christ's Redemption, and as founded on an Arian abuse of the word Eternal. The publication of this work provoked a storm of opposition from more than one section of the Church; and one of its results was that the author was, in the same year, dismissed from the two professorships he had hitherto held at King's College. In the succeeding year were published 'Lectures on the Ecclesiastical History of the First and Second Centuries,' founded on notes of extempore lectures delivered at King's College, remodelled and prepared for the press by the lecturer. At this period in Mr. Maurice's life we find stronger traces of the movement with which his name has been since connected, as the advocate of a system of social combination amongst workmen on Christian principles. This principle was explained in a series of lectures delivered at Willis's Rooms in 1854, shortly after the establishment of the "Working Men's College," now in Great Ormond Street, of which Mr. Maurice is Principal. This institution has been supported by the voluntary aid of numerous fellow-labourers from the educated classes of society, who express a strong hope that the College will bear fruits on the whole land, through the teachers and pupils who pass from its walls to other scenes of action. Mr. Maurice has been one of the foremost also in the establishment and maintenance of "The Ladies' College," in Harley Street. In 1854 was published a work, entitled, 'The Doctrine of Sacrifice deduced from Scripture.' This series of lectures, delivered in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn, was dedicated to the members of the Young Men's Christian Association, to whom some vehement strictures upon the 'Theological Essays' had been addressed by Dr. Candlish. In the same year appeared 'The Unity of the New Testament,' a synopsis of the Gospel narratives. Later still, in 1857, we find the Gospel of St. John,' a series of lectures addressed to the congregation in Lincoln's Inn; and, in the same year, the Epistles of St. John,' a treatise on Christian Ethics, addressed to the students at the Working Men's College. In 1855 we find Mr. Maurice lecturing at Edinburgh on the 'Religion of the Old Romans;' and amongst his latest productions is a series of sermons, preached at Lincoln's Inn, on the 'Indian Crisis.' Mr. Maurice is said by the religious periodicals of all schools to be a "misty" writer. We are assured, nevertheless, that he takes some pains to address the congregation in the Chapel of St. Peter's, Vere Street, Oxford Street, to which he was appointed in 1860, in simple English, and to divest his sermons, as much as may be, of technical phraseology. And he declares, we have heard, that some of his most affectionate and earnest listeners have been found among men and women of the humblest classes, even among agricultural labourers, when he has had the opportunity of preaching the Gospel to them. |