Simon Patrick

Simon Patrick (8 September 1626 – 31 May 1707) was an English theologian and bishop.

The Right Reverend Simon Patrick
Bishop of Ely
Church	Church of England
Diocese	Diocese of Ely
In office	1691–1707
Predecessor	Francis Turner
Successor	John Moore
Other posts	Dean of Peterborough (1679–1689) Bishop of Chichester (1689–1691)
Personal details
Born	8 September 1626
Died	31 May 1707 (aged 80)
Buried	Ely Cathedral
Nationality	British
Denomination	Anglican
Education	Boston Grammar School
Alma mater	Queens' College, Cambridge

Memorial to Bishop Simon Patrick in Ely Cathedral

Ledger stone of Penelope Jephson, wife of Bishop Patrick, Ely Cathedral

Life

He was born at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, on 8 September 1626, and attended Boston Grammar School. He entered Queens' College, Cambridge, in 1644,[1] and after taking orders in 1651 became successively chaplain to Sir Walter St. John and vicar of Battersea, Surrey. He was afterwards (1662) preferred to the rectory of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, London, where he continued to labor during the plague.

He was appointed Dean of Peterborough in 1679, and Bishop of Chichester in 1689, in which year he was employed, along with others of the new bishops, to settle the affairs of the Church in Ireland. In 1691 he was translated to the see of Ely, which he held until his death on 31 May 1707. He was buried in Ely Cathedral.[2] He had Dalham Hall built.

Works

His sermons and devotional writings are numerous, and his Commentary on the Historical and Poetical Books of the Old Testament, in 10 vols., going as far as the Song of Solomon, was reprinted in the 1810 Critical Commentary on the Old and New Testaments and Apocrypha, along with works of Richard Arnald, Moses Lowman, William Lowth, and Daniel Whitby.[2]

Patrick's Friendly Debate between a Conformist and a Nonconformist was a controversial tract, defending the Five Mile Act.[2] It excited considerable feeling at the time of its publication in 1668. Among replies was one from Samuel Rolle as Philagathus.[3] He also contributed to a volume of Poems upon Divine and Moral Subjects (1719).

The first collected edition of his works appeared at Oxford in 1858 (9 vols.), edited by Alexander Taylor; a small Autobiography was published also at Oxford in 1839.[2]

He is the author of the anti-semitic pamphlet, "Jewish Hypocrisie, A Caveat To The Present Generation."

Theology

Simon Patrick, was influenced by prominent Arminian theologians as Henry Hammond, and the Cambridge Platonists; and was criticized for his Arminian belief.[4] He is described by historians as an influential Arminian Anglican.[5]

Marriage

In 1675 he married Penelope Jephson, a daughter of Maj. Gen. William Jephson (1609-1658), a Member of Parliament for Stockbridge, by his wife Alicia Denham, a daughter of Sir John Denham of Borestall House, Buckinghamshire.[6]

Notes and references

Citations

1. "Simon Patrick (PTRK644S)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
2. Overton, John Henry (1895). "Patrick, Simon (1626-1707)" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 44. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
3. Smith, Charlotte Fell (1897). "Rolle, Samuel" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 49. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
4. Feingold 1990, p. 259. Patrick himself was particularly subject to accusations of Arminianism because he based his tutorial instruction on the work of the Laudian Henry Hammond. His early opposition to predestination had been strengthened by the teaching of his mentor, the Cambridge Platonist John Smith [...] Simon Patrick's library catalogue from this period gives some indication of what these forbidden books would have been since it includes works by prominent Arminian theologians such as Espicopius, Grotius, and Hammond.
5. Coffey 2006, p. 227. Besides Sancroft, there were other young men at Cambridge in the early 1650s who were to become influential Arminian Anglicans: Isaac Barrow [...], John Tillotson [...], Simon Patrick [...], Edward Stillingfleet [...], Richard Kidder [...], Thomas Tenison. [...] The most important influences on them were clearly the Cambridge Platonists, and the Anglican Arminian, Henry Hammond. But Redemption Redeemed may have helped to confirm their rejection of Calvinism.
6. The printed autobiography of Simon Patrick calls his wife a "grandchild to the lady Durham (sic) of Borstall". The Auto-Biography of Simon Patrick, Bishop of Ely

Sources

• Coffey, John (2006). John Goodwin and the Puritan Revolution : Religion and Intellectual Change in Seventeenth-Century England. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Feingold, Mordechai (1990). Before Newton: The Life and Times of Isaac Barrow. Cambridge: Cambridge university press.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Patrick, Simon". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

External links

• Rt Rev Simon Patrick
• Facsimile of Simon Patrick's preface to Hugo Grotius' Truths of Christian Religion. Scanned by Elms College Alumnae Library.