to militate against it--viz., men's antagonism.
Similarly, Peter, throughout this whole letter, and in my text, is
heartening the disciples against impending persecution, and, like his
Lord, he bids them face it, if not 'with frolic welcome' at all events
with undiminished and undimmed serenity and cheerfulness. Christ based
the exhortation on the thought that great would be their reward in
Heaven. Peter points to the salvation ready to be revealed as being the
ground of the joy that he enjoined. So in the words and in the whole
strain and structure of the exhortation the servant is copying his
Master.

But, of course, although the immediate application of these words is to
Churches fronting the possibility and probability of actual persecution
and affliction for the sake of Jesus Christ, the principle involved
applies to us all. And the worries and the sorrows of our daily life
need the exhortation here, quite as much as did the martyr's pains.
White ants will pick a carcass clean as soon as a lion will, and there
is quite as much wear and tear of Christian gladness arising from the
small frictions of our daily life as from the great strain and stress of
persecution.

So our Apostle has a word for us all. Now it seems to me that in this
text there are three things to be noticed: a paradox, a possibility, a
duty. 'In which ye rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are
in heaviness through manifold temptations.' Look at these three points.

I. This paradox.

Two emotions diametrically opposed are to be contained within the narrow
room of one disposition and temper. 'Ye greatly rejoice.... Ye are in
heaviness.' Can such a thing be? Well! let us think for a moment. The
sources of the two conflicting emotions are laid out before us; they may
be constantly operative in every life. On the one hand, 'in which ye
greatly rejoice.' Now that 'in which' does not point back only to the
words that immediately precede, but to the whole complex clause that
goes before. And what is the 'which' that is there? These things; the
possession of a new life--'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ who hath begotten us again!'--the springing up in a man's
heart of a strange new hope, like a new star that swims into the sky,
and sheds a radiance all about it--'Begotten unto a lively hope by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead'; a new wealth--an
'inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not