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BERM.
IX.,
THÉ
HIDDEN LIFE
OF
A
CHRISTIAN.
lG7
sound
of
a
trumpet, into
public
light and glory;
the
same persons, indeed,
that
once
inhabited
mortality,
but
in far
different equipage
and
array.
The
christian,
on
earth,
is
like
the rough diamond
among
the common pebbles
of
the shore
;
in
the
resur
rection-day the
diamond
is
cut and
polished,
and set in
a
tablet of
gold.
All
that
inward worth and
lustre
of
holiness and grace, which
are
now
hidden,
shall
be
then
visible
and public before the
eyes,
of
the
whole
creation.
Then
the saints shall
be known by
their
shining,
in
the
day
when
the
Lord
makes up
his
jewels,
Mal.
iii.
17.
When the spirits
of
the
just
made
perfect
in all
the
beauties of
holiness, shall
return
to
their former man-
sions;
and
become men again
;
when
their
bodies
are
raised
from the dust,
in
the
likeness
of
the body
of our
blessed Lord,
how
shall
all
the saints
shine
in
the king-
dom
of
their Father, though
in
the kingdoms
of
this
world they were
obscure and undistinguished
!
They
shall
appear,
in
that
day, as the
meridian
sun
breaking
from
a
long,and
dark
eclipse;
and the
sun
is
too
bright
a
being to
be
unknown;
'Mat.
xiii.
43.
What
is
there
in
a
poor saint
here,
that
discovers
what
he
shall be
hereafter?
How
mean
his
appearance
now
!
how
magnificent in
that
day
!
What
was
there in Laza-
rus
on the dunghill, when the dogs licked
his
sores,
that
could lead
us to.
any
thought
what he should
be in
the
bosom
of
Abraham
?
What
is
there
in
the martyrs
and
confessors,
described
in
Heb.
xi.
those
holy men,
with
their
sheep
-
skins,
and their goat
-skins
upon
them,
wan-
dering
in
deserts, and
hidden
in
dens
and
caves
of
the
earth
?
What
was
there
in these
poor and
miserable
spectacles
that
looks like
a
saint
in glory
?
or that could
give us
any
intimation what they
shall
be
in
the
great
rising
day?
Now
are
we
the
sons
of
God,
but
it
does
not ,yet ap-
pear
what
we
shall
be;
1
John
iii.
2.
We
can
shew
no
pattern
of
it
here
below. Shall we go
to the palaces
of
eastern
princes, and
borrow their
crowns and
sparkling
attire,
to
shew how
the saints are
drest
in
heaven?
Shall
We
take
their marble
pillars,
their roofs
of
cedar,
their
costly
furniture of purple
and
gold, to
describe the
man-
sions of immortality?
Shall
we
attend
the
chariot
of
some
Roman general,
with all the ensigns
of
victory,
m4