The works of

Frederick Denison Maurice

1805 1872

Priest, theologian and teacher; chaplain of Lincoln's Inn, founder of the Working Men's College, and one of the most searching religious thinkers of Victorian England. His books are gathered here in careful new editions, free to read, download, and hear.

Browse the library His life

The world is the Church without God; the Church is the world restored to its relation with God, taken back by Him into the state for which He created it.

Theological Essays

The Library

Each book is transcribed from a printed edition and checked page by page against the scan, keeping Maurice's own spelling, punctuation and emphasis.

Theology

The books in which Maurice set out his account of the Church, revelation, and the Christian faith.

Lectures on Scripture

Readings of whole books of the Bible, given as lectures and followed through from beginning to end.

Sermons

Sermons from Lincoln's Inn Chapel and from country parishes.

Read online

Every book, chapter by chapter, set for comfortable reading on any screen, with notes, contents and full-text search.

Download

EPUB for e-readers, PDF for print or phone, Word and plain text: 62 files in all, free to keep and share.

Modern English

4 books also have a paragraph-by-paragraph paraphrase in present-day English, to read beside the original.

Listen

Audiobook narrations of 8 books on YouTube, plus EPUBs prepared for text-to-speech.

Who was F. D. Maurice?

Born the son of a Unitarian minister in 1805, Maurice found his way into the Church of England and became one of its most original theologians. He taught that Christ is already the head of every man, that the Church is the witness to a kingdom which embraces all humanity, and that theology must answer to "the deepest thoughts and feelings of human beings."

Those convictions made him a founder of Christian Socialism and of the Working Men's College, a pioneer of women's education, and, for a season, a heretic in the eyes of many: his Theological Essays cost him his professorships at King's College, London.

Read more about his life