ADVERTISEMENT.

THE intention of the author, in venturing to illustrate the Te Deum, has been to endeavour to lead the devout mind to a more exact theology, and at the same time to avoid technicality. The nearer we come to the exact expression of the truth, the more arguments we gather for the praise of the Supreme. We are to love God, not only with the heart, but also with the mind; and this is done by the study

of that, which even the heathen philosopher described as the highest of all acquirements, the sublime science of theology.

And with this it has been the Author's humble desire to teach men to PRAISE well. Sorrow and the blessed trials of this life bring each of us to our knees, and our very necessities teach us to pray; but praise is in some sort foreign to us poor frail sinners, and we are more at home with the De Profundis or Miserere, than with the Trisagium or Gloria in Excelsis. It is with most of us an effort to join the angelic chant, as it is an effort to give GOD the other substantial laud, the praising Him not only with our lips but in our

lives; and it was thought that the

direction of the thoughts to this most

wondrous song of joy, at once so exalted and so practical, might not be without its good effect, (under the aid of the HOLY SPIRIT,) in fostering both these forms of paying tribute to the majesty and goodness of God.

INTRODUCTION.

THE Composition of the great triumphal hymn of the Christian Church is very striking. Nowhere do the strains of exulting praise rise higher, and nowhere is there to be found in closer apposition to them, words of such anxious prayer for grace, such fear and deprecation of wrath, such abasement and penitent humility. It is as if the glimpse of the unseen world had revealed the misery of this, and the light shining down from the glorious TRINITY, surrounded