APOLOGY

FOR

APOSTOLIC ORDER

AND ITS

ADVOCATES,

OCCASIONED BY THE STRICTURES AND DENUNCIATIONS

OF THE

CHRISTIAN'S MAGAZINE.

IN A SERIES OF LETTERS,

ADDRESSED

TO THE REV. JOHN M. MASON, D. D.

THE EDITOR OF THAT WORK.

BY THE REV. JOHN HENRY HOBART,

AN ASSISTANT MINISTER OF TRINITY CHURCH.

Judge righteous judgment.

John vii. 24.

New-York:

PRINTED BY T. AND J. SWORDS,

No. 160 Pearl-Street.

1807.

PREFACE.

THE writer of the following letters and his opinions having been pointedly and violently assailed in the Christian's Magazine, he is reluctantly compelled to obtrude himself upon the public attention. He thinks he has a particular claim upon all those who have taken up unfavourable views of those opinions which that Magazine assails, for a candid perusal of his defence. In that work he has been solemnly arraigned "at the bar of public criticism.' The readers of that publication cannot, therefore, he conceives, consistently with their regard to justice, their love of truth, or the claims of duty, refuse to hear him in his defence. It is the first dictate of justice, to give an accused person a patient and candid hearing before judgment is passed on him. The impartial pursuit of truth cannot be compatible with an examination of only one side of a disputed question. And they who will place themselves for a moment in the situation of the individual whom that Magazine denounces as holding opinions of "deep-toned horror," will at once feel it a sacred duty to admit him to repel the accusation. They are required so to do by that law of supreme obligation, "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you."

The writer of these letters disclaims from the heart all feelings of hostility to the many