ple, Gen. xviii. 32. Rev. vi. 11. 2 Pet. ii. 9. His patience is manifested by giving warnings of judgments before he executes them, Hos. vi. 5. Amos i. 1. 2 Pet. ii. 5. In long delaying his judg ments, Eccl. viii. 11. In often mixing mercy with them. There are many instances of his patience recorded in the Scriptures; with the old world, Gen. vi. 3; the inhabitants of Sodom, Gen. xviii; in Pharaoh, Exod. v; in the people of Israel in the wilderness, Acts xiii. 18; in the Amorites and Canaanites, Gen. xv. 15. Lev. xviii. 28. in the Gentile world, Acts xvii. 30; in fruitless professors, Luke xiii. 6, 9; in Antichrist, Rev. ii. 21. xiii. 6. xviii. 8. See. Charnock's Works, vol. i. p. 780; Gill's Body of Divinity, vol. i. p. 130; Saurin's Sermon's, vol. i. ser. 10 and 11, 148, 149; Tillotson's Sermons.

the most strong and solid; and, there- || fore, we are not to excuse improper dispositions under affliction, by saying, It was so trying, who could help it? This is to justify impatience by what God sends on purpose to make you patient. -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 grievous 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 prayers. 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; PATRIARCHS, heads of families; be of good courage, and he shall a name applied chiefly to those who strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on lived before Moses, who were both the Lord' priests and princes, without peculiar We have, however, the most power-places fitted for worship, Acts ii. 29. ful motives to excite us to the attain-vii. 8, 9. Heb. vii. 4. ment of this grace. 1. God is a God of patience, Rom. xv. 5.-2. It is enjoined by the Gospel, Rom. xii. 12. Luke xxi. 19.-3. The present state of man renders the practice of it absolutely necessary, Heb. x. 36.-4. The manifold inconvenience of impatience is a strong motive, John iv. Psal. cvi.-5. Eminent examples of it, Heb. xii. 2. Heb. vi. 12. Job i. 22.-6. Reflect that all our trials will terminate in triumph, James v. 7, 8. Rom. ii. 7. Barrow's Works, vol. iii.|| ser. 10; Jay's Sermons, ser. 2. vol. i.; Mason's Christian Morals, vol. i. ser. 3; Blair's Sermons, vol. iii. ser. 11; Bishop Horne's Discourses, vol. ii. ser. 10; Bishop Hopkins's Death Disarmed, p. 1, 120.

PATIENCE OF GOD is his long suffering or forbearance. He is called the God of patience, not only because he is the author and object of the grace of patience, 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, 2 Pet. iii. 9. Rom. iii. 25. Isa. xxx. 18. 1 Tim. i. 16. and towards the ungodly, Rom. ii. 4. Eccl. 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 peo

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 the right of consecrating and approving of every single bishop under his jurisdiction. The patriarchate has ever been 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 superintended a province, and had for suffragans the bishops of his province; the primate was the chief of what was then called a diocess, and had several metropolitans under him; and the patriarch had under him several diocesses, 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 Alexan

dria in Africa: and thus formed a tri- || that the authority of the patriarchs was nity of patriarchs. Others maintain, not acknowledged through all the prothat the name patriarch was unknown vinces without exception. Several disat the time of the council of Nice; and tricts, both in the eastern and western that for a long time afterwards patri- empires, were exempted from their juarchs and primates were confounded to- risdiction. The Latin church had no gether, as being all equally chiefs of patriarchs till the sixth century; and diocesses, and equally superior to me- the churches of Gaul, Britain, &c. were tropolitans, who were only chiefs of never subject to the authority of the provinces. Hence Socrates gives the patriarch of Rome, whose authority title patriarch to all the chiefs of dio- only extended to the suburbicary processes, and reckons ten of them. Indeed, vinces. There was no primacy, no exit does not appear that the dignity of archate, nor patriarchate, owned here; patriarch was appropriated to the five but the bishops, with the metropolitans, grand sees of Rome, Constantinople, governed the church in common. InAlexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, deed, after the name patriarch became till after the council of Chalcedon, in frequent in the West, it was attributed 451; for when the council of Nice regu- to the bishop of Bourges and Lyons; but lated the limits and prerogatives of the it was only in the first signification, viz. three patriarchs of Rome, Antioch, and as heads of diocesses. Du Cange says, Alexandria, it did not give them the ti- that there have been some abbots who tle of patriarchs, though it allowed have borne the title of patriarchs. them the pre-eminence and privileges thereof; thus when the council of Constantinople adjudged the second place to the bishop of Constantinople, who, till then, was only a suffragan of Heraclea, it said nothing of the patriarchate. Nor is the term patriarch found in the decree of the council of Chalcedon, whereby the fifth place is assigned to the bishop of Jerusalem; nor did these five patriarchs govern all the churches.

PATRICIANS, ancient sectaries who disturbed the peace of the church in the beginning of the third century; thus called from their founder Patricius, preceptor of a Marchionite called Symmachus. His distinguishing tenet was, that the substance of the flesh is not the work of God, but that of the devil; on which account his adherents bore an implacable hatred to their own flesh, which sometimes carried them so far as to kill themselves.

PATRIPASSIANS, a sect that ap-.

century; so called from their ascribing the passion or sufferings of Christ to the Father; for they asserted the unity of God in such a manner as to destroy all distinctions of persons, and to make the Father and Son precisely the same; in which they were followed by the Sabellians and others. The author and head of the Patripassians was Praxeas, a philosopher of Phrygia, in Asia.

There were besides many independent chiefs of diocesses, who, far from owning the jurisdiction of the grand patri-peared about the latter end of the second archs, called themselves patriarchs, such as that of Aquileia; nor was Carthage ever subject to the patriarch of Alexandria. Mosheim (Eccles. Hist. vol. i. p. 284.) imagines that the bishops who enjoyed a certain degree of preeminence over the rest of their order, were distinguished by the Jewish title of patriarchs in the fourth century. The authority of the patriarchs gradually increased till about the close of PATRONAGE, or ApvoWSON, a the fifth century: all affairs of moment sort of incorporeal hereditament, conwithin the compass of their patriarch-sisting in the right of presentation to a ates came before them, either at first church, or ecclesiastical benefice. Adhand, or by appeals from the metropo- vowson signifies the taking into prolitans. They consecrated hishops; as-tection, and therefore is synonymous with sembled yearly in council the clergy of patronage; and he who has the right of their respective districts; pronounced advowson is called the patron of the a decisive judgment in those cases where church. accusations were brought against bishops; and appointed vicars or deputies, clothed with their authority, for the preservation of order and tranquillity in the remoter provinces. In short, nothing was done without consulting them, and their decrees were executed with the same regularity and respect as those of the princes.

It deserves to be remarked, however,

PAULIANISTS, a sect so called from their founder, Paulus Samosatenus, a native of Samosata, elected bishop of Antioch, in 262. His doctrine seems to have amounted to this: that the Son and the Holy Ghost exist in God in the same manner as the faculties of reason and activity do in man; that Christ was born a mere man; but that the reason or wisdom of the Father descended into

him, and by him wrought miracles upon earth, and instructed the nations, and, finally, that on account of this union of the divine Word with the man Jesus, Christ might, though improperly, be called God. It is also said that he did not baptise in the name of the Father and the Son, &c. for which reason the council of Nice ordered those baptised by him to be re-baptised. Being condemned by Dionysius Alexandrinus in a council, he abjured his errors to avoid deposition; but soon after he resumed them, and was actually deposed by another council in 269. He may be considered as the father of the modern Socinians; and his errors are severely condemned by the council of Nice, whose creed differs a little from that now used under the same name in the church of England. The creed agreed upon by the Nicene fathers with a view to the errors of Paulus Samosatenus concludes thus: "But those who say there was a time when he was not, and that he was not before he was born, the catholic and apostolic church anathematize."

Carbeus, they declared against the Greeks a war, which was carried on for fifty years with the greatest vehemence and fury. During these commotions, some Paulicians, towards the conclusion of this century, spread abroad their doctrines among the Bulgarians: many of them, either from a principle of zeal for the propagation of their opinions, or from a natural desire of flying from the persecution which they suffered under the Grecian yoke, retired about the close of the eleventh century from Bulgaria and Thrace, and formed settlements in other countries. Their first migration was into Italy; whence, in process of time, they sent colonies into almost all the other provinces of Europe, and formed gradually a considerable number of religious assemblies, who adhered to their doctrine, and who were afterwards persecuted with the utmost vehemence by the Roman pontiffs. In Italy they were called Patarini, from a certain place called Pataria, being a part of the city of Milan where they held their assemblies: and Gathari, or Gazari, from Gazaria, or the Lesser Tartary. In France they were called Albigenses, though their faith differed widely from that of Albigenses, whom Protestant writers generally vindicate (See ALBIGENSES.) The first religious assembly the Paulícians had formed in Europe, is said to have been discovered at Orleans in 1017, under the reign of Robert, when many of them were con demned to be burnt alive. The ancient

PAULICIANS, a branch of the ancient Manichees; so called from their founder, one Paulus, an Armenian, in the seventh century, who, with his brother John, both of Samosata, formed this sect; though others are of opinion that they were thus called from another Paul, an Armenian by birth, who lived under the reign of Justinian II. In the seventh century, a zealot, called Constantine, revived this drooping sect, which had suffered much from the vio-Paulicians, according to Photius, exlence of its adversaries, and was ready to expire under the severity of the imperial edicts, and that zeal with which they were carried into execution. The Paulicians, however, by their number, and the countenance of the emperor Nicephorus, became formidable to all the East. But the cruel rage of persecution, which had for some years been suspended, broke forth with redoubled violence under the reigns of Michael Curopalates, and Leo the Armenian, who inflicted capital punishment on such of the Paulicians as refused to return into the bosom of the church. The empress Theodora, tutoress of the emperor Michael, in 845, would oblige them either to be converted, or to quit the empire; upon which several of them were put to death, and more retired among the Saracens; but they were neither all exterminated nor banished.

pressed the utmost abhorrence of Manes
and his doctrine. The Greek writers
comprise their errors under the six fol-
lowing particulars: 1. They denied that
this inferior and visible world is the pro-
duction of the Supreme Being; and they
distinguish the Creator of the world
and of human bodies from the Most
High God who dwells in the heavens;
and hence some have been led to con-
ceive that they were a branch of the
Gnostics rather than of the Manicheans.
-2. They treated contemptuously the
Virgin Mary, or, according to the usual
manner of speaking among the Greeks,
they refused to adore and worship her.
3. They refused to celebrate the institu-
tion of the Lord's supper.-4. They
loaded the cross of Christ with con-
tempt and reproach, by which we are
only to understand that they refused to
follow the absurd and superstitious prac-
tice of the Greeks, who paid to the pre-
tended wood of the cross a certain sort
of religious homage.-5. They rejected,
after the example of the greatest part

of the Gnostics, the books of the Old || view to preferment, desiring to be adTestament; and looked upon the writers mitted among the presbyters of that of that sacred history as inspired by the city. But the discovery of his opinions Creator of this world, and not by the having blasted all his hopes, and his erSupreme God.-6. They excluded pres-rors being condemned in a council held byters and elders from all part in the administration of the church.

PEACE, that state of mind in which persons are exposed to no open violence to interrupt their tranquillity. 1. Social peace is mutual agreement one with another, whereby we forbear injuring one another, Psalm xxxiv. 14. Psalm cxxxii.-2. Ecclesiastical peace is freedom from contentions, and rest from persecutions, Isa. xi. 13. Isaiah xxxii. 17. Rev. xii. 14.-3. Spiritual peace is deliverance from sin, by which we were at enmity with God, Rom. v. 1; the result of which is peace, in the conscience, Heb. x. 22. This peace is the gift of God through Jesus Christ, 2 Thess. || iii. 16. It is a blessing of great importance, Psalm cxix. 165. It is denominated perfect, Isaiah xxvi. 3. inexpressible, Phil. iv. 7. permanent, Job xxxiv. 22. John xvi. 22. eternal, Isaiah Ivii. 2. Heb. iv. 9. See HAPPINESS.

PELAGIANS, a sect who appeared about the end of the fourth century. They maintained the following doctrines: 1. That Adam was by nature mortal, and, whether he had sinned or not, would certainly have died.-2. That the consequences of Adam's sin were confined to his own person.-3. That new-born infants are in the same situation with Adam before the fall.-4. That the law qualified men for the kingdom of heaven, and was founded upon equal promises with the Gospel.-5. That the general resurrection of the dead does

not follow in virtue of our Saviour's resurrection.-6. That the grace of God is given according to our merits.-7. That this grace is not granted for the performance of every moral act; the liberty of the will and information in points of duty being sufficient.

The founder of this sect was Pelagius, a native of Great Britain. He was educated in the monastery of Banchor, in Wales, of which he became a monk, and afterwards an abbot. In the early part of his life he went over to France, and thence to Rome, where he and his friend Celestius propagated their opinions, though in a private manner. Upon the approach of the Goths, A. D. 410, they retired from Rome, and went first into Sicily, and afterwards into Africa, where they published their doctrines with more freedom. From Africa, Pelagius passed into Palestine, while Celestius remained at Carthage, with a

at Carthage, A. D. 412, he departed from that city, and went into the East. It was from this time, that Augustin, the famous bishop of Hippo, began to attack the tenets of Pelagius and Celestius in his learned and elegant writings; and to him, indeed, is principally due the glory of having suppressed this sect in its very birth.

Things went more smoothly with Pelagius in the East, where he enjoyed the protection and favour of John, bishop of Jerusalem, whose attachment to the sentiments of Origen led him naturally to countenance those of Pelagius, on account of the conformity that there seemed to be between these two systems. Under the shadow of this powerful protection, Pelagius made a public profession of his opinions, and formed disciples in several places. And though, in the year 415, he was accused by Orosius, a Spanish presbyter, whom Augustin had sent into Palestine for that purpose, before an assembly of bishops met at Jerusalem, yet he was dismissed without the least censure; and not only so, but was soon after fully acquitted of all errors by the council of Diospolis.

This controversy was brought to Rome, and referred by Celestius and Pelagius to the decision of Zosimus, who was raised to the pontificate, A. D. 417. The new pontiff, gained over by the ambiguous and seemingly orthodox confession of faith that Celestius, who was now at Rome, had artfully drawn up, and also by the letters and protestations of Pelagius, pronounced in favour of these monks, declared them sound in the faith, and unjustly persecuted by their adversaries. The African bishops, with Augustin at their head, little affected with this declaration, continued obstinately to maintain the judgment they had pronounced in this matter, and to strengthen it by their exhortations, their letters and their writings. Zosimus yielded to the perseverance of the Africans, changed his mind, and condemned, with the utmost severity, Pelagius and Celestius, whom he had honoured with his approbation, and covered with his protection. This was followed by a train of evils, which pursued these two monks without interruption. They were condemned, says Mosheim, by that same Ephesian council which had launched its thunder at the head of Nestorius. In

short, the Gauls, Britons, and Africans, by their councils, and emperors, by their edicts and penal laws, demolished this sect in its infancy, and suppressed it entirely before it had acquired any tolerable degree of vigour or consistence.

years of age. Since its reformation by Mary Alvequin, in 1616, none have been admitted but maids, who, however, still retain the ancient name, penitents.

PENITENTS, an appellation given to certain fraternities of penitents, distinguished by the different shape and colour of their habits. These are secular societies, who have their rules, statutes, and churches, and make public processions under their particular cross

PENANCE, a punishment either voluntary, or imposed by authority, for the faults a person has committed. Penance is one of the seven sacraments of the Romish Church. Besides fasting, alms, abstinence, and the like, whiches or banners. Of these, it is said, there are the general conditions of penance, there are others of a more particular kind; as the repeating a certain number of avemarys, paternosters, and credos; wearing a hair shift, and giving oneself a certain number of stripes. In Italy and Spain it is usual to see Christians, almost naked, loaded with chains, and lashing themselves at every step. See POPERY.

are more than a hundred, the most considerable of which are as follow: the White Penitents, of which there are several different sorts at Rome, the most ancient of which was constituted in 1264: the brethren of this fraternity every year give portions to a certain number of young girls, in order to their being married: their habit is a kind of white sackcloth, and on the shoulder is PENITENCE is sometimes used for a circle, in the middle of which is a red a state of repentance, and sometimes for and white cross. Black Penitents, the the act of repenting. It is also used for most considerable of which are the Brea discipline or punishment attending re-thren of Mercy, instituted in 1488 by pentance, more usually called penance. It also gives title to several religious orders, consisting either of converted debauchees and reformed prostitutes, or of persons who devote themselves to the office of reclaiming them. See next article.

some Florentines, in order to assist crí minals during their imprisonment, and at the time of their death. On the day of execution they walk in procession before them, singing the seven penitential psalms, and the litanies; and after they are dead, they take them down from the gibbet, and bury them: their habit is black sackcloth. There are others whose business is to bury such persons as are found dead in the streets: these wear a death's head on one side of their habit. There are also blue, gray, red, green, and violet penitents, all which are remarkable for little else besides the different colours of their habits.

Order of penitents of St. Magdalen was established about the year 1272, by one Barnard, a citizen of Marseilles, who devoted himself to the work of converting the courtesans of that city. Barnard was seconded by several others, who, forming a kind of society, were at length erected into a religious order by pope Nicholas III. under the rule of St. Augustin. F. Gesney says, they also Penitents, or Converts of the name of made a religious order of the penitents, Jesus, a congregation of religious at Seor women they converted, giving them ville, in Spain, consisting of women who the same rules and observances which have led a licentious life, founded in they themselves kept. 1550. This monastery is divided into Congregation of penitents of St. Mag-three quarters: one for professed relidalen at Paris, owed its rise to the preaching of F. Tisseran, a Franciscan, who converted a vast number of courtesans, about the year 1492. Louis, duke of Orleans, gave them his house for a monastery; or rather, as appears by their constitution, Charles VIII. gave them the hotel called Bochaigne, whence they were removed to St. George's Chapel, Penitents of Orvieto, are an order of in 1572. By virtue of a brief of pope nuns instituted by Antony Simoncelli, a Alexander, Simon, bishop of Paris, in gentleman of Orvieto, in Italy. The 1497, drew them up a body of statutes, monastery he built was at first designand gave them the rule of St. Augustin. ed for the reception of poor girls abanIt was necessary before a woman could doned by their parents, and in danger be admitted, that she had first com- of losing their virtue. In 1662 it was mitted the sin of the flesh. None were erected into a monastery, for the recepadmitted who were above thirty-fivetion of such as having abandoned them

gious; another for novices; a third for those who are under correction. When these last give signs of a real repentance, they are removed into the quarter of the novices, where, if they do not behave themselves well, they are remanded to their correction. They observe the rule of St. Augustin.