He was born at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, eldest son of Henry Patrick, a wealthy merchant, 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.

King Charles appointed a Commission to investigate the matter, but Patrick alleged that his supporters were not given proper opportunity to present arguments in his favour.

He challenged the proceedings of the commission in court, but after two years of litigation the judges remained evenly divided on the matter and Patrick dropped the case.

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.

[7] In 1675 he married Penelope Jephson (died 1725), a daughter of Maj. Gen. William Jephson (1609–1658), a highly influential Member of Parliament for Stockbridge, and also a substantial landowner in Mallow, County Cork, by his wife Alicia Dynham,[8] a daughter of Sir John Dynham of Boarstall Tower, Buckinghamshire and Penelope Wenman.