Patrick, SIMON

Patrick, SIMON, a learned English divine, born at Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, 8th September 1626, was educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, and was successively rector of St Paul's, Covent Garden (1662), where he laboured heroically through the horrors of the Great Plague, Dean of Peterborough (1678), Bishop of Chichester (1689) and of Ely (1691). He died May 31, 1707. A theologian no less devout than erudite, an ecclesiastic of wide sympathies and large sagacity, he established a solid reputation by his excellent sermons, of which may be selected for special mention that preached at the funeral of John Smith of Cambridge, printed with Smith's Select Discourses; his admirable if sometimes prolix devotional and expository treatises, some of which are still read; and his sound and frequently reprinted paraphrases and commentaries on the historical and poetical books of Scripture from Genesis to Canticles (10 vols. 1695-1710). Of the expository works may here merely be named A Brief Exposition of the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer, The Parable of the Pilgrims, The Heart's Ease, The Christian Sacrifice, Advice to a Friend, The Devout Christian Instructed, and Jesus and the Resurrection Justified. His Autobiography was first printed at Oxford in 1839, and is included in the complete Oxford Clarendon Press edition of his works, edited by the Rev. Alexander Taylor (9 vols. 1858).