763, fol. ed.; and books under article MINISTRY. which is none at all to another, as the latter feels little or no pain PATIENCE, that calm and from that wound inflicted on the unruffled temper with which a good body or mind which gives the man bears the evils of life. "Pa-most exquisite anguish to the fortience," says an eminent writer, mer. Again; there is an artifi"is apt to be ranked by many cial insensibility: such as is proamong the more humble and ob-cured by opiates, which blunt the scure virtues, belonging chiefly to edge of pain; and there is an acthose who groan on a sick bed, or quired insensibility; or that which who languish in a prison; but in is attained by the force of prinevery circumstance of life no vir- ciples strongly inculcated, or by tue is more important both to long custom. Such was the apathy duty and to happiness. It is not of the Stoics, who obstinately mainconfined to a situation of continu-tained that pain was no evil, and ed adversity: it principally, in- therefore bore it with amazing deed, regards the disagreeable firmness; which, however, was circumstances which are apt to very different from the virtue of occur; but prosperity cannot be Christian patience, as appears enjoyed, any more than adversity from the principles from which supported without it. It must en- they respectively proceeded; the ter into the temper, and form the one springing from pride, the habit of the soul, if we would other from humility." Christian pass through the world with tran-patience, then, is something difquillity and honour.""Christian ferent from all these. " It is not patience," says Mason, "is essentially different from insensibility, whether natural, artificial, or acquired. This, indeed, sometimes passes for patience, though it be in reality quite another thing; for patience signifies sufferings. Now if you inflict ever so much pain on the body of another, if he is not sensible of it, it is no pain to him; he suffers nothing: consequently calmness under it is no patience. This insensibility is sometimes natural. Some, in the native temperament of their mind and body, are much less susceptible of pain than others are.— There are different degrees of insensibility in men, both in their animal and mental frame; so that the same event may be a great exercise of patience to one man, a careless indolence, a stupid in- 66 Divine Patience," says Mr. Jay, "must be displayed under provocations. Our opinions, reputation, connexions, offices, business, render us widely vulnerable. The characters of men are various; their pursuits and their interests perpetually clash: some try us by their ignorance, some by their folly; some by their perverseness, some by their malice. Here, then, is an opportunity for the triumph of patience. We are very susceptive of irritation; an- | transgression.' The man provoked ger is eloquent; revenge is sweet: to revenge is conquered, and loses เ the glory of the struggle; while he who forbears comes off victor, crowned with no common laurels. A flood assails a rock, and rolls off unable to make an impression; while straws and boughs are borne stream, driven and tossed. Examples require it. What provocations had Joseph received from his brethren? but he scarcely mentions the crime; so eager is he to announce the pardon. David says, but to stand calm and collected; to suspend the blow which passion was urgent to strike; to drive the reasons of clemency as far as they will go; to bring forward fairly in view the circumstances of mitigation; to distinguish between sur-off in triumph, carried down the prise and deliberation, infirmity and crime; or, if an infliction be deemed necessary, to leave God to be both the judge and the executioner; this a Christian should labour after his peace requires it. People love to sting the pas-They rewarded me evil for good; sionate: they who are easily provoked, commit their repose to the keeping of their enemies; they lie down at their feet, and invite them to strike. The man of temper places himself beyond vexatious interruption. He that hath * no rule over his own spirit, is like a city that is broken down, and without walls,' into which enter over the ruins serpents, vagrants, thieves, enemies; while the man who in patience possesses, his soul, has the command of himself, places a defence all around him, and forbids the entrance of such unwelcome company to offend or discompose. His wisdom requires it. 'He that is slow to anger is of great understanding; but he that is hasty of spirit, exalteth folly.' Wisdom gives us large, various, comprehensive views of things; the very exercise operates as a diversion, affords the mind time to cool, and furnishes numberless circumstances tending to soften severity. His dignity requires it. It is the glory of a man to pass by a but as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth.' Stephen, dying under a shower of stones, prays for his enemies: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.' But a greater than Joseph, or David, or Stephen, is here. Go to the foot of the cross, and behold Jesus, suffering for us. Every thing conspired to render the provocation heinous; the nature of the offence, the meanness and obligation of the offenders, the righteousness of his cause, the grandeur of his person; and all these seemed to call for vengeance. The creatures were eager to punish. Peter drew his sword: the sun resolved to shine on such criminals no longer; the rocks asked to crush them; the earth trembles under the sinful load; the very dead cannot remain in their graves. He suffers them all to testify their sympathy, but forbids their revenge; and, lest the Judge of all should pour forth his fury, he cries, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!'-2. Patience is to ' be displayed in suffering affliction. xv, 5.-2. It is enjoined by the This is another field in which pa- Gospel, Rom. xii, 12, Luke xxi, tience gathers glory. Affliction 19.-3. The present state of man comes to exercise our patience, renders the practice of it absoand to distinguish it. The trial lutely necessary, Heb. x, 36.-4. your faith worketh patience,' The manifold inconvenience of not only in consequence of the impatience is a strong motive, Divine Blessing, but by the natural Jon. iv. Psalm cvi.-5. Eminent operation of things: use makes examples of it, Heb. xii, 2. Heb. perfect; the yoke is rendered easy vi, 12. Job i, 22.-6. Reflect that by being worn, and those parts of all our trials will terminate in trithe body which are most in action umph, James v, 7, 8. Rom. ii, 7. are the most strong and solid; and, Barrow's Works, vol. iii, ser. 10; therefore, we are not to excuse Jay's Sermons, ser. 2, vol. i ; Maimproper dispositions under af-son's Christian Morals, vol. i, ser, fliction, by saying, it was so try-3; Blair's Sermons, vol. iii, ser, ing, who could help it? This is to 11; Bishop Horne's Discourses, justify impatience by what God vol. ii, ser. 10; Bishop Hopkins's sends on purpose to make you pa- Death disarmed, p. 1, 120, tient.-3. Patience is to be exercised under delays. We as naturally pursue a desired good as we shun an apprehended evil: the want of such a good is as griev-object of the grace of patience, ous as the pressure of such an evil; and an ability to bear the one is as needful a qualification as the fortitude by which we endure the other. It therefore equally belongs to patience to wait, as to suffer. God does not always immediately indulge us with an answer to our prayer, He hears, indeed, as soon as we knock; but he does not open the door: to stand there resolved not to go without a blessing, requires patience; and patience cries, Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.'' PATIENCE OF GOD is his long suffering or forbearance. He is called the God of patience, not only because he is the author and but because he is patient or long suffering in himself, and towards his creatures, It is not, indeed, to be considered as a quality, accident, passion, or affection in God as in creatures, but belongs to the very nature and essence of God, and springs from his goodness and mercy, Rom. ii, 4. It is said to be exercised towards his chosen people, 2d Pet. iii, 9. Rom. iii, 25. Is. xxx, 18. 1st Tim. i, 16. and towards the ungodly, Rom. ii, 4. Ecc. viii, 11. The end of his forbearance to the wicked, is, that they may be without excuse; to "make his power and goodness visible; and partly for the sake of his own people, Gen. xviii, 32. Rev. vi, 11. 2d Pet. iii, 9. His patience is manifested by giving We have, however, the most powerful motives to excite us to the attainment of this grace. 1. God is a God of patience, Rom. the right of consecrating and approving of every single bishop under his jurisdiction. The patriarchate has been ever esteemed the supreme dignity in the church: the bishop had only under him the territory of the city of which he was bishop; the metropolitan su warnings of judgments before he executes them, Hos. vi, 5. Amos i, 1. 2d Pet. ii, 5. In long delaying his judgments, Ecc. viii. 11. In often mixing mercy with them. There are many instances of his patience recorded in the scripture: with the old world, Gen. vi, 3; the inhabitants of So-perintended a province, and had dom, Gen. xiii; in Pharaoh, Ex. v; in the people of Israel in the wilderness, Acts xiii, 18; in the Amorites and Canaanites, Gen. xv, 16. Lev. xviii, 28; in the Gentile world, Acts xvii, 30; in fruitless professors, Luke xiii, 6, 9; in Antichrist, Rev. ii, 21. Ch. xiii, 6. Ch. xviii, 8. See Charnock's Works, vol. i, p. 780; Gill's Body of Divinity, vol. i, p. 130; Saurin's Sermons, vol. i, ser. 10. and 11, 148, 149; Tillotson's Sermons. PATRIARCHS, heads of families; a name applied chiefly to those who lived before Moses, who were both priests and princes, without peculiar places fitted for worship, Acts ii, 29. Ch. vii, 8, 9. Heb. vii, 4. Patriarchs, among Christians, are ecclesiastical dignitaries, or bishops, so called from their paternal authority in the church. The power of patriarchs was not the same in all, but differed according to the different customs of countries, or the pleasures of kings and councils. Thus the patriarch of Constantinople grew to be a patriarch over the, patriarchs of Ephesus and Cæsarea, and was called the Ecumenical and Universal Patriarch; and the patriarch of Alexandria had some prerogatives which no other patriarch but himself enjoyed; such as for suffragans the bishops of his province; the primate was the chief of what was then called a diocese, and had several metropolitans under him; and the patriarch had under him several dioceses, composing one exarchate, and the primates themselves were under him. Usher, Pagi, De Marca, and Morinus, attribute the establishment of the grand patriarchates to the apostles themselves, who, in their opinion, according to the description of the world then given by geographers, pitched on three principal cities in the three parts of the known world, viz. Rome in Europe, Antioch in Asia, and Alexandria in Africa: and thus formed a trinity of patriarchs. Others maintain, that the name patriarch was unknown at the time of the council of Nice; and that for a long time afterwards patriarchs and primates were confounded together, as being all equally chiefs of dioceses, and equally superior to metropolitans, who were only chiefs of provinces. Hence Socrates gives the title patriarch to all the chiefs of dioceses, and reckons ten of them. Indeed, it does not appear that the dignity of patriarch was appropriated to the five grand sees of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, An tioch, and Jerusalem, till after judgment in those cases where acthe council of Chalcedon, in 451; cusations were brought against bifor when the council of Nice re-shops; and appointed vicars or gulated the limits and preroga- deputies, clothed with their authotives of the three patriarchs of rity, for the preservation of order Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, and tranquillity in the remoter it did not give them the title of provinces. In short, nothing was patriarchs, though it allowed them done without consulting them, and the pre-eminence and privileges their decrees were executed with thereof: thus, when the council the same regularity and respect as of Constantinople adjudged the those of the princes. second place to the bishop of Con- It deserves to be remarked, stantinople, who till then was however, that the authority of only a suffragan of Heraclea, it the patriarchs was not acknowsaid nothing of the patriarchate. ledged through all the provinces Nor is the term patriarch found in without exception. Several disthe decree of the council of Chal-tricts, both in the eastern and cedon, whereby the fifth place is western empires, were exempted assigned to the bishop of Jerusa- from their jurisdiction. The Lalem; nor did these five patriarchs tin church had no patriarchs till govern all the churches. the sixth century; and the There were besides many inde-churches of Gaul, Britain, &c., pendent chiefs of dioceses, who, were never subject to the authofar from owning the jurisdiction rity of the patriarch of Rome, of the grand patriarchs, called whose authority only extendthemselves patriarchs, such as that ed to the suburbicary proof Aquileia; nor was Carthage vinces. There was no primacy, ever subject to the patriarch of no exarchate, nor patriarchate, Alexandria. Mosheim (Eccles. owned here; but the bishops, Hist., vol. i, p. 284) imagines that with the metropolitans, governed the bishops who enjoyed a certain the church in common. Indeed, degree of pre-eminence over the after the name patriarch became rest of their order were distin-frequent in the West, it was at-' guished by the Jewish title of tributed to the bishops of Bourpatriarchs in the fourth century.ges and Lyons; but it was only in The authority of the patriarchs gradually increased till about the close of the fifth century: all affairs of moment within the compass of their patriarchates came PATRICIANS, ancient sectabefore them either at first hand ries who disturbed the peace of or by appeals from the metropo- the church in the beginning of the litans. They consecrated bi-third century; thus called from shops; assembled yearly in coun- their founder Patricius, preceptor cil the clergy of their respective of a Marcionite called Symmadistricts; pronounced a decisive chus. His distinguishing tenet the first signification, viz. as heads of dioceses. Du Cange says, that there have been some abbots who have borne the title of patriarchs. |