The apostle in the text solves for us the mystery. It is not that there is nothing in Christianity to cheer and elevate the feelings. In the great mercy of God, which hath begotten us again to a new and living hope by the certain resurrection of our crucified Lord--in the prospect of an imperishable inheritance reserved for us in heaven, and the perfect assurance of our divine preservation till that inheritance shall be revealed--we do indeed "greatly rejoice," exult with gladness, leap with exuberant joy; though now for a little while, as necessary for our spiritual discipline, we may be put to grief in "manifold temptations." Faith we have in these glorious disclosures of Christ's evangel, and that faith is genuine, efficient, sometimes quite triumphant; but at present, perhaps, the gold is in the furnace, enduring the test from which it shall soon come forth purified, beautified, fit for the coronal of our expected King. The word temptation sometimes means enticement, and sometimes trial. We are tempted when we are enticed to evil, whether by Satan, or his servants, or our own evil hearts; and we are tempted when our faith is tried, when our virtue is tested, when our character is put to the proof, whether by the malice of men or the providence of God. Evidently, the term here is to be taken in the latter sense. The temptations of which the apostle speaks are trials, such as those of Job, Jacob, David, the holy prophets and martyrs, all in every age who live godly in Christ Jesus. "Manifold temptations" are complicated trials--trial within trial--one infolding another--one overlapping another--many involved in one--all so interlaced and bound up together that we cannot analyze them, cannot even trace the threads of the tangled skein. The grief or "heaviness" which they produce does not necessarily indicate a want of trust in God, or of submission to his holy will. The firmest believer and most steadfast disciple may sometimes, through outward affliction, walk in darkness and have no light, even while he trusts in the name of the Lord and stays himself upon his God. Christ never doubted his Father's love, nor feared the issue of his mighty undertaking; yet when the hour and the power of darkness came upon him, he "began to be sorrowful," "sore amazed," and "very heavy." "Not my will, but thine, be done"--was the language of his guiltless lips, when bowed in his baptism of blood beneath a burden which might have crushed a world. So his suffering servants patiently endure their tribulations, glorifying God in the midst of the fire, and singing with the royal psalmist--"Why art thou cast down, O my soul! and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance!"