Marianne Dorman

Mark Frank: (1612-1644) His Contribution to the Caroline Church Marianne Dorman

Mark Frank has been one of the most overlooked of all the Caroline divines. It is author Marianne Dorman's hope that this book will partly rectify this. Frank's sermons, with their polished style, are the high-water mark of preaching amongst the Caroline Divines in the seventeenth century.

At a time when the faith of old is sometimes hard to experience, Mark Frank, who was one of many faithful priests ejected from their livings during the English Civil War, is an example of loving perseverance in the faith he cherished.

This extract, preached at Easter during the Interregnum, gives a glimpse of the grief he and many others felt when the Church was dismantled.

The body is the Church; and to have that taken from us, the Church, that glorious candlestick removed, and borne away we know not whither, what good soul is there that must not necessarily be perplexed at it? What way shall we take when they have taken away the pillar of truth, and should lead us in it? Whither shall we go when we know not whither that is gone, where they have laid it, or where to find it? Poor ignorant women, nay, and men, too, may well now wander in uncertainties.

Mark Frank thus presents that Catholic faith lived out and preached by Frank, especially during the Cromwellian regime. We do not know where he preached, but preach he did during this time. Hopefully it will enable the reader to discover the beauty of his prose and the depth of his theological insights of the Catholic faith with all its wholeness, wonder, and worship.