, and which is to come.'--Rev. iv. 8.

It is not only on earth, but in heaven too, that the Holiness of God is
His chief and most glorious attribute. It is not only on earth, but in
heaven too, that the highest inspiration of adoration and praise makes
mention of His Holiness. The brightest of living beings, they who are
ever before and around and above the throne, find their glory in adoring
and proclaiming the Holiness of God: surely there can be for us no
higher honour than to study and to know, to worship and adore, to
proclaim and show forth the glory of the Thrice Holy One.

After Moses, as we know, Isaiah was the chief messenger of the Holiness
of God. Each had a special preparation for his commission to make known
the Holy One. Moses saw the Holy One in the fire, and hid his face and
feared to look upon God, and so was prepared for being His messenger,
and for praising Him as 'glorious in holiness.' Isaiah, as he heard the
song of the seraphim, and saw the fire on the altar, and the house
filled with the smoke, cried out, 'Woe is me.' It was not till, in the
deep sense of the need of cleansing, he had received the touch of the
fire and the purging of his sin, that he might bear to Israel the Gospel
of the Holy One as its Redeemer. May it be in the spirit of fear and
lowly worship that we listen to the song of the seraphim, and seek to
know and worship the Thrice Holy One. And may ours too be the cleansing
with the fire, that we may be found fit to tell God's people that He is
the Holy One of Israel, their Redeemer.

The threefold repetition of the HOLY has at all times by the Church of
Christ been connected with the Holy Trinity. The song of the living
creatures around the throne (Rev. iv.) is evidence of the truth of this
thought. We there find it followed by the adoration of Him who was, and
is, and is to come, the Almighty: the Eternal Source, the present
manifestation in the Son, the future perfecting of the revelation of God
in the Spirit's work in His Church. The truth of the Holy Trinity is
often regarded as an abstract doctrine, with little direct bearing on
practical life. So far is this from being the case, that a living faith
must root in it: some spiritual insight into the relation and the
operation of each of the Three, and the reality of their living Oneness,
is an essential element of true growth in knowledge and spiritual
understanding.[6] Let us here regard the Trinity specially in its
relat