III. Inference. How glorious is the difference between the two parts of the christian’s life, _viz._ the spiritual life on earth, and the perfection of eternal life in heaven; when all that is now hidden shall be revealed before men and angels! Come now, and let us take occasion from this discourse, to let loose our meditations one stage beyond death and the separate state, even to the morning of the resurrection, and the full and public assembly of all the saints. O what an illustrious appearance! What a numerous and noble army of new creatures! Creatures that were hidden in this world among the common herd of mankind, and their bodies hidden in the grave, and mingled with common dust, rising all at once, at the 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 resurrection-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 mansions, 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 kingdom 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 Lazarus on the dung-hill, 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, wandering 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?