PATRICK, Simon, a learned English bishop, and author of a number of useful works in practical divinity, was born at Gainsborough in Lincolnshire in 1626. He entered Queen's College, Cambridge, in 1644; and after taking orders, he became successively chaplain to Sir Walter St John, and vicar of the church at Battersea in Surrey. He
Patroclus was afterwards preferred to the rectory of St Paul's, Covent Garden, London, where he continued during the plague of 1665 amongst his parishioners. In 1668 he published his Friendly Debate between a Conformist and a Nonconformist. This was answered by the dissenters, whom he had much exasperated; but by his moderation and candour towards them afterwards, they were greatly reconciled to him; and he is said to have gained over many of them to the communion of the Established Church. He was made dean of Peterborough in 1678, bishop of Chichester in 1689, and bishop of Ely in 1691. In 1689 he was employed, with others of the new bishops, to settle the affairs of the church in Ireland. He died in 1707.
Bishop Patrick's sermons and devotional writings are very numerous. In this species of composition he was considered one of the happiest authors of his time; and his writings are still esteemed by pious Christians. His Commentary on the Historical and Poetical Books of the Old Testament, 14 vols. 4to and 8vo, London, 1695, &c., is the result of extensive reading, and, without being highly critical, continues to be one of the best in the language for practical purposes. He proceeded no farther than the Song of Solomon; and the commentaries of Lowth, Arnald, Whitby, and Lowman are generally added to complete the work. (See a new edition, with the text printed at large, in 4 vols. imp. 8vo, 1853.) His works have never been published in a collected form; but a complete list of them will be found in Darling's Cyclopaedia Bibliographica, London, 1854. An autobiography of the bishop appeared at Oxford in 18mo, 1839.