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 Resurrection a Power as Well as an Event Easter Day

   The Easter Collect’s modest prayer for good desires brought to good effect is no anticlimax, since the power that raised Christ is the same power now awakening and fulfilling those desires.

2. God the Justifier of Man Second Sunday after Easter

   Justification is the righteous God claiming the ungodly and raising them to trust him, as with Abraham and David, so faith is no party tenet but acknowledging a righteousness that is God’s.

3. Christ Meeting with Doubters Third Sunday after Easter

   The Emmaus disciples are as bewildered as doubters today, and the risen Christ meets them as He meets us, opening the Scriptures and breaking bread, so no later age is disadvantaged.

4. Excommunication Fourth Sunday after Easter

   Paul’s sentence on the Corinthian offender ratifies the man’s own choice of another master, aims at saving his spirit, and imposes no outward penalty; it is fearful because communion is life’s foundation.

5. Christ’s Death and Resurrection the Solution of the Problems of the Universe Fifth Sunday after Easter

   Moses and Paul answer men’s restless craving to know what lies in heaven above and the deep below: the word is near, and Christ has entered death and ascended on high.

6. How Christ’s Ascension Bears upon Ordinary Practice Sunday after Ascension

   Christ’s Ascension, with human nature glorified at God’s right hand, is the ground of plain duties like truthfulness, honest work and family faithfulness, since all are members of one family under one Head.

7. The Help of Believing in a Spirit Who Has Been Given to Us Whit-Sunday

   Fear is not God’s Spirit; the Spirit given to us is one of power behind all speech, healing and rule, of love, and of a sound mind, never ours to boast of.

8. Faith in the Trinity Not Faith in a Dogma Trinity Sunday

   Rather than a dogma to be defended with texts and tradition, the Trinity is the Name we are baptized into: Father above all, Word through all, Spirit in all, uniting men.

9. Why We are Greater Than the Greatest of the Prophets First Sunday after Trinity

   John’s baptism of repentance closes the old age by pointing beyond itself; the least in the kingdom is greater, sealed with the Name of Father, Son and Spirit and counted a son.

10. Courage Second Sunday after Trinity

    Courage is neither savage nor brutal but rests on trust that God is among his people, and the Gospel unites Hebrew, Greek and Roman courage in one both gentle and stern.

11. Samuel’s Call Not an Exceptional Event Third Sunday after Trinity

    God spoke inwardly to the child Samuel as He still teaches every child, so the story needs neither moralising applications nor a hunt for wonders, only the answer, Speak, Lord.

12. The Glory and Deliverance of the Animal Nature Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Morning)

    Creation’s groan, including the suffering of innocent animals, is a pang before deliverance: the creature subjected for man’s sake will be freed with God’s sons, and Christ redeems the body itself.

13. Cry for God’s Judgments Fourth Sunday after Trinity (Afternoon)

    Isaiah’s prayer that God rend the heavens, which natural religion shuns by keeping God distant, is the universal cry, answered in Christ, whose righteous kingdom opposes civil and ecclesiastical tyranny alike.

14. The Honour and Degradation of an Official Fifth Sunday after Trinity

    Both routine officialism and self-willed irregularity enslave; Paul, a steward bound to preach even when unwilling, trusts God’s good Will to make the cold official willing, so that duty and freedom meet.

15. Revivals Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity

    Superstition is the enemy of faith, not its excess: trust in a righteous God destroys it, so religious excitement that stirs the nerves rather than the conscience leads to moral harm.

16. Priests and Saints Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

    Priests witness to a sacrifice and atonement God Himself makes, and saints are the whole called people; when priests lack righteousness and grasp at powers not given them, the people’s joy fails.

17. The New Heavens and the New Earth Twentieth Sunday after Trinity

    In Scripture “new” means renewed, not replaced: Peter’s new heavens and earth are this creation freed from falsehood and tyranny, where righteousness dwells, so the earth deserves reverence and prophetic panics mislead.

18. Peace: What it is Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity

    Christ’s peace is no escape from outward strife or inward temptation but His own filial trust in the Father, given afresh to the weak, kept only while shared, and pledged by His wounds.

19. War: How to Prepare Ourselves for it Sunday before Advent

    A nation’s strength against invasion depends on its daily war with spiritual wickedness, namely electoral corruption, vice and greed, which is won by owning our sins together and trusting the God of Right.