Sermons Preached in Lincoln's Inn Chapel

Contents

The one-line summaries are guides drafted with the help of AI, not Maurice’s words.

1. The Advent of Christ, and the Eucharist Advent Sunday

   Advent and the Eucharist both rest on Christ’s present reign as Lord, the Son of Man who comes continually in judgment and conscience, and the Sacrament, received simply rather than theorized about, witnesses to it.

2. The Sacramental Character of the Bible Second Sunday in Advent

   Paul reads Israel’s history as sacramental, the Red Sea, the manna and the rock being real signs of the same Christ who went with Israel, so Scripture and the Eucharist interpret each other.

3. The Christian Priest Third Sunday in Advent

   The Eucharist is thanksgiving for Christ’s finished sacrifice, never its repetition, so presiding at the table makes no man a sacrificing priest, only a witness to a reconciliation God has already made.

4. The Christian Life Fourth Sunday in Advent

   The Eucharist holds together sorrow and joy, the living and the departed, in a real communion opened by Christ’s torn veil, and self-examination asks not whether we are worthy but whether we desire deliverance.

5. Christian Innocence First Sunday after Christmas

   True innocence is not a lost infant purity but childlike self-forgetfulness and dependence on Christ, which a repentant sinner may know more fully than an unconscious child.

6. The Circumcision of the Spirit First Sunday in the Year

   Sanctification begins with the painful discovery of our own insincerity, cured only by God’s will working in us, and personal holiness cannot be separated from the nation’s shared sins.

7. The Gospel the Manifestation of God First Sunday after Epiphany

   The gospel is good news about God, not an exposure of hidden wrath, and being lost is a present darkness of mind, so preaching must set forth Christ’s image rather than work by fear.

8. The Complete Man Second Sunday after Epiphany

   Christ reconciles Jew and Gentile not by blending their opinions but by fulfilling what each sought, the Jew through revelation and the Gentile through philosophy, in a peace found only at the Cross.

9. The Gospel of Repentance Conversion of St. Paul

   Paul’s conversion is not a change of religion but a turning from his condemned self to the God he had persecuted in Christ, a call made universal because God has no favourites.

10. The Perfect Revelation Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

    God’s glory revealed in Christ still points to a universal Epiphany, and as Israel’s bondage to idols was cured only by God showing himself Deliverer, true faith longs for that glory for others too.

11. The Labourers and the Feast Septuagesima Sunday

    Many are called but few chosen describes not divine favouritism but human refusal, for God’s invitation is universal, and the merely called are those who resent sharing grace or trust their own righteousness.

12. Christ the Sower Sexagesima Sunday

    The sower is Christ himself, scattering God’s Word in every conscience, so the parable searches each hearer’s heart, and any seed that fails does so through our resistance, never through God’s lack.

13. The Three Things Which Abide Quinquagesima Sunday

    Faith, hope and charity abide when prophecy and partial knowledge fail: faith as trust grounding us in God, hope because his glory is inexhaustible, and charity greatest because it is God’s own nature.

14. Earth and Heaven First Sunday in Lent

    Our citizenship is in heaven now, not merely hereafter, so those who mind earthly things undervalue their own status, and even the humbled body awaits being made like Christ’s glorious body.

15. The Evil Nature in Others and Ourselves First Sunday in Lent

    To write anyone off as dog or swine denies the divine image still alive in them, for Christ always spoke to the holy nature beneath degradation, and flattering baser instincts only lets that nature rend us.

16. The Lusts of the Flesh and of the Spirit Second Sunday in Lent

    Flesh and spirit are not reason and appetite but two rival hungers in every person, one bestial and one holy, and walking in the Spirit means trusting God rather than one’s own will.

17. The World and the Church Third Sunday in Lent

    The world that Christ’s death overthrows is the false world of fashion and opinion, not the creation God loves, so the Church is the world’s servant, not its rival, and must engage rather than withdraw.

18. The Devil and God Fourth Sunday in Lent

    Christ treats sickness, madness and death as the work of a real enemy, and our danger now is not superstition but failing to name sloth, cowardice and insincerity as that enemy’s work.

19. How We Learn to Fight Fifth Sunday in Lent

    The Christian life is real warfare against the flesh, the world and the devil, a struggle the Psalms record, for God stirs up conflict in us rather than letting us sleep in comfort.

20. Passion Week; its Dangers and Blessings Sunday before Easter

    Passion Week’s danger is manufacturing solemn feelings instead of bringing our real state before God, since Christ came not because sin was great but because God’s love came first.