"The time that is at hand": Mark Frank's sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent

The sermons of the Caroline divine Mark Frank (d.1664) for the Christian year - A Course of Sermons, Beginning at Advent, and so continued through the Festivals - were published in 1672.  Ejected from his position in Cambridge in 1644 for refusal to subscribe to the Solemn League and Covenant, at the Restoration Frank had been reinstated as a Fellow of Pembroke Hall, and also appointed Archdeacon of St. Albans and to the Chapter of St. Paul's.  In 1662 he became Master of Pembroke Hall. He was also a chaplain to the first two post-Restoration Archbishops of Canterbury, Juxon and Sheldon.  Frank's standing in the Restoration Church was, therefore, very evident, a standing which would have given recognition and status to his published sermons.  Indeed, the sermons were dedicated to Sheldon, noting that Frank "had that Relation to your Grace, and yourself that Favour for him".

As such, his sermons for the season of Advent almost certainly had an influence in shaping the understanding and observance of Advent in the Restoration Church. His sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent, on a text taken from the Epistle of the day (Philippians 4:4ff), emphasised Advent as a preparation for the celebration for the Lord's Nativity, with particular reference to the words from the appointed Epistle:

'Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.'

The Text is a part of the Epistle for the day, chosen you may conceive, because the Lord, that is the time of his coming is at hand. A fit preparation thought by the Church for Christmas now so near, to prepare us how to entertain the happy day, the joyful news of our Lord Christ's coming in the flesh ... I take hint from the Church's choice of this Text for the front of her Epistle this day to her Children, and say, the Lord may be said to be at hand too, because the Feast of his coming, that coming which gave rise to all the rest, the original of all the rest of his gracious comings is at hand to us. 

Frank also drew attention to Advent as preparation for receiving the Sacrament at Christmas, pointing to the need for reconciliation between communicants for worthy reception:

The Lord is at hand in the blessed Sacrament, and that is also now at hand; but a week between us and it. And moderation of all kinds is but a due preparation to it, some special act of it to be done against it: Righteousness and equity is the habitation of his seat, says David: the Lord sits not, nor abides where they are not. The holy Sacrament that is his Seat, a Seat of wonder, is not set but in the righteous and good soul, has no efficacy but there. Modesty and humility are the steps to it; into the modest and humble soul only will he vouchsafe to come. All reverence and civility is but requisite in our addresses unto it. But moderation, meekness, and patience, and sweetness, and forgiving injuries is so requisite that there is no coming there, no offering at the altar till we be first reconciled to our Brother ...

At the Holy Sacrament he is so near at hand, that he is at the Table with us, reaches to every one a portion of himself, yet will give it to none but such as come in an universal Charity with all the forementioned moderations.

This call to "an universal Charity", Frank notes, has a particular resonance with the approach of Christmas:

The time that is at hand is a time to be celebrated with all Christian joy and moderation, some particular and special act of Charity, Equity, Modesty, Meekness, Moderation to be sought out to be done in it, or to welcome it: The Feast of Love to be solemnized with an universal Charity.

Frank's sermon is another example of both the Caroline roots and the continued vitality of the understanding and observance of Advent in the Restoration Church.  It is also worth noting how the emphasis on Advent as preparation for the celebration of the Lord's Nativity was enriched by the season being at the same time a preparation for receiving the Holy Sacrament at Christmas (a theme also seen in Donne).

(The photograph is of Pembroke College.)