A Commentary on the Te Deum

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 edition. Excerpt: ... We Praise Thee, 0 God: We Acknowledge Thee To Be The LOKD. The obligation of praising Almighty God arises from no necessity which He has for our worship of this kind, but from the duty which we, His creatures, owe to Him. We do it, not to express our thoughts with regard to Him, but to excite ourselves and others to worship and adore Him. We do not speak to Him as we do to man, to whom such address is neces B sary to convey our thoughts to him; but we do it to Him Who knows our thoughts already, to produce a moral effect upon ourselves and others. And yet God is pleased to allow our praises, worthless though they be, to redound to His honour; for He says, "Whoso offereth Me thanks and praise, He honoureth Me; and to him that ordereth his conversation right will I show the salvation of God."1 Now so far as regards the being of God, He is incomprehensible and ineffable; praise cannot reach Him. Worship and adoration are all that we can pay Him; but regarding the operations of His hands, which He has wrought for us, and which we can witness, and therefore in some degree measure, we can praise Him, --as 1 Ps. 1. 23. Isaiah says, "I will mention the loving-kindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord hath bestowed upon us."1 God, then, as shown forth to us in creation, and revealed to us by the faith, is the object of our praises; and that which, according to His own manifestation, we believe of the glory of the Father, the same we believe of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, without difference or inequality. So that in the confession or "acknowledgment" of the true and eternal Deity, we adore a distinction in the Person, an unity in the Substance, and an equality in the Majesty; "For there are three that...