MAURICE, JOHN FREDERICK DENISON (1805-1872), English theologian, was born at Normanston, Suffolk, on the 29th of August, 1805. He was the son of a Unitarian minister, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1823, though it was then impossible for any but members of the Established Church to obtain a degree. Together with John Sterling (with whom he founded the Apostles' Club) he migrated to Trinity Hall, whence he obtained a first class in civil law in 1827; he then came to London, and gave himself to literary work, writing a novel, _Eustace Conyers_, and editing the _London Literary Chronicle_ until 1830, and also for a short time the _Athenaeum_. At this time he was much perplexed as to his religious opinions, and he ultimately found relief in a decision to take a further university course and to seek Anglican orders. Entering Exeter College, Oxford, he took a second class in classics in 1831. He was ordained in 1834, and after a short curacy at Bubbenhall in Warwickshire was appointed chaplain of Guy's Hospital, and became thenceforward a sensible factor in the intellectual and social life of London. From 1839 to 1841 Maurice was editor of the _Education Magazine_. In 1840 he was appointed professor of English history and literature in King's College, and to this post in 1846 was added the chair of divinity. In 1845 he was Boyle lecturer and Warburton lecturer. These chairs he held till 1853. In that year he published _Theological Essays_, wherein were stated opinions which savoured to the principal, Dr R. W. Jelf, and to the council, of unsound theology in regard to eternal punishment. He had previously been called on to clear himself from charges of heterodoxy brought against him in the _Quarterly Review_ (1851), and had been acquitted by a committee of inquiry. Now again he maintained with great warmth of conviction that his views were in close accordance with Scripture and the Anglican standards, but the council, without specifying any distinct "heresy" and declining to submit the case to the judgment of competent theologians, ruled otherwise, and he was deprived of his professorships. He held at the same time the chaplaincy of Lincoln's Inn, for which he had resigned Guy's (1846-1860), but when he offered to resign this the benchers refused. Nor was he assailed in the incumbency of St. Peter's, Vere Street, which he held for nine years (1860-1869), and where he drew round him a circle of thoughtful people. During the early years of this period he was engaged in a hot and bitter controversy with H. L. Mansel (afterwards dean of St Paul's), arising out of the latter's Bampton lecture upon reason and revelation.