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Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Le Moine, Abraham

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1434575Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 33 — Le Moine, Abraham1893John Goldworth Alger

LE MOINE, ABRAHAM (d. 1757), theological controversialist, was probably the son of one of the Huguenot refugees of that name settled in England. From 1723 to 1743 he was chaplain to the French Hospital in London. In 1729 he became chaplain to the Duke of Portland, who in 1738 presented him to the rectory of Everley, Wiltshire. His handwriting appears in the register till 11 July 1756. He died in the following January, and was buried at St. James's, Paddington, 13 Jan. 1757 (Lysons, Environs of London), but his tombstone has disappeared. His principal work is a ‘Treatise on Miracles,’ a reply to Thomas Chubb [q. v.], London, 1747. He also wrote ‘A Vindication of the Literal Account of the Fall,’ London, 1751, being a reply to Middleton; and ‘A Defence of the Sacred History of the Old Testament against the groundless objections and false insinuations of the late Lord Bolingbroke in his Letters on the Study and Use of History,’ London, 1753. He published French translations of Bishop Gibson's ‘Pastorals on Infidelity and on Missions,’ London, 1729, and ‘Letters against Libertines,’ the Hague, 1732; of Bishop Sherlock's ‘Dissertations on the Fall, on Second Epistle of St. Peter, on Prophecy, and on Jacob's Blessing to Judah,’ Amsterdam, 1732, and of the anonymous ‘Tryal of the witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus’ (1729), to which he added a ‘Dissertation historique sur les écrits de Mr. Woolston,’ i.e. Thomas Woolston [q. v.], the Hague, 1735.

Two brothers, Abraham Le Moine, born 10 Feb. 1724, and Joseph Le Moine, apparently sons of the above, entered Merchant Taylors' School, London, in 1735. The former graduated B.A. from Catharine Hall, Cambridge, in 1744.

[Everley parish register; Agnew's French Prot. Exiles, London, 1886; Sir R. C. Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, London, 1822–43; Gent. Mag. 1759 p. 593, 1818 ii. 116; Picot's Mém. Hist. Ecclés., new ed., Paris, 1855 (incorrect as to date of death).]