THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 101
the Thirty-nine Articles, wherein is showed that the Church of England, properly so called, is not now existing : with an Essay towards a real Protestant Establishment." And in the year 1746, he wrote "The True Protestant," a hook of a similar character to those mentioned before. And at the time of his becoming connected with Mr. Whitefield, in 1739, he wrote in his vindication, "An Answer to Dr. Trapp s Four Sermons against Mr. White field," and "Remarks upon the Bishop of London s Pastoral Letter."
Finding much discouragement in his good work of reformation within the Church, Mr. Seagrave saw it, as it appeared also to Wesley and Whitefield, more advantageous to work outside her pale. Hence, in 1739, he was appointed Sunday Evening Lec turer at Lorimers Hall, in Cripplegate. This place of meeting had been in the hands of the General Baptists, and afterwards of the Independents, but at that time it was used by the early Methodists. The building is now taken down. There Mr. Seagrave preached till 1750, and during the same period he preached frequently at the Tabernacle. We have no particulars of his last years, but one John Griffiths, in his "experience," speaks of having heard Mr. Seagrave in a Nonconformist Chapel in 1759, and of the spiritual benefit he received. So that as late as his sixty- sixth year, Mr. Seagrave was still successfully preaching the Gospel. His hymns show his high appreciation of the distinctive doctrines of the atonement, and the pains he took to proclaim them. He had learned them in his own experience. He says of himself,
" Moral my hope, my saviour self,
Till mighty grace the cheat display d."
And then adds, in a verse commended by Whitefield, in his letter 420, boaring date 1742 :
" Glad, I forsook my righteous pride, My tarnish d, filthy, sinful dress ; Exchang d my loss away for Christ, And found a robe of righteousness."
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