Regent College

 

 

 

 

An Introduction to John Bunyan’s

The House of the Forest of Lebanon

 

for INDS/SPIR 595 , Wayfarers and Warfarers – Maxine Hancock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Sarah Hale

February 8, 2000

 

The exact date when John Bunyan actually composed The House of the Forest of Lebanon is unknown. It was first published in Doe’s posthumous collection of 1692, but was probably written during the last year or two of Bunyan’s life, along with a number of other works published in 1688. These works included Solomon’s Temple Spiritualized, which might logically have preceded The House . It is also reasonable to assume that the intense persecutions of the 1680’s were the inspiration for this book on the "wilderness church." As Graham Midgley notes, "….between August 1684 and December 1686 scarcely any meetings of the Bedford congregation were held. People were fined, driven from their homes and gaoled, preachers dragged from their pulpits, and meeting places sacked."1 Although Charles II died, matters did not improve until James II’s Declaration of Indulgence in 1687. Even then, until the Glorious Revolution, the non-conforming churches might justifiably have felt uncertain about their continued safety – freedom had been offered and withdrawn before. It is then no surprise that Bunyan felt called upon to write a tract of encouragement to his weary and battered congregation – nor that he included in the work a defense against the charges of sedition. It is only one of the curious ironies surrounding this little book that it was not published until after the period of danger that inspired it.

This paper will talk briefly about the literary and exegetical tradition of typology, of which The House of the Forest of Lebanon is an example. It will then summarize Bunyan’s basic analogy, and show how his skills as a writer and as a student of scripture combine to create a powerful meditation on the persecuted church. Finally, the paper will raise the question of John Bunyan’s central thesis – that the description of Solomon’s armoury is a message for the English non-conforming church – and ask what effect Bunyan’s probable misreading of his central text has on the value of this little book.

The 17th century was a time of intense controversy over legitimate ways of understanding and interpreting scripture. The Puritans inherited the Reformation distaste and suspicion of patristic and medieval allegorical methods. The new emphasis on the literal sense of both the Old and the New Testaments led to a rejection of those who, in the words of Thomas Gataker in 1646, "make Scripture a nose of wax that men may wind and turn which way they list." 2 On the other hand, preachers and commentators found themselves unable to understand large portions of the Bible or to apply scripture to the lives of their congregations without using symbolic language. Thomas Luxon observes, "The principal dodge that allowed Protestantism to attack allegorical interpretation as a "licentious system" devised by Satan and the equivocating "Papists" while simultaneously preserving the absolute otherness of God and "the world that is to come" is called typology." 3

The distinction between allegory and typology revolves around the issue of historical reality. An allegory is an extended narrative metaphor; its truth lies in the aptness of its analogy to some reality beyond itself. Typology is a process whereby historical events or people are seen to "mean" or prefigure later events or people. The person or thing which "means" is referred to as the "type," while the person or thing meant is the "antitype." Volumes were written during Bunyan’s lifetime debating the dangers of allegory and trying to understand the Bible’s use of typology in order to establish "safe" rules for various kinds of figurative language.

When Bunyan turned from writing allegory, for which he felt compelled to "apologize," 4 to the less controversial form of typology, he could build on a large body of Puritan preaching and writing. As he says in Chapter II of The House, "Now…. The Tabernacle, the Temple, the Porch and Throne, Wise,man say are typical; and therefore so is this."5 The temple of Solomon was a favorite subject for typological writing, and Bunyan made his own contribution to the genre with Solomon’s Temple Spiritualized. For the most part, it was considered legitimate to locate types in the Old Testament and antitypes in the New Testament, with some comparisons to the inner life of believers. However, more than one Puritan preacher found himself extending the comparisons forward in time, and locating his antitypes in contemporary history. The House of the Forest of Lebanon falls into this category of typology.

Bunyan finds his basic type in a few verses from Kings and Chronicles. I Kings 7: 1b-6 describes the building of "the House of the Forest of Lebanon…..on four rows of cedar-wood pillars." Most Biblical scholars, past and present, believe this building to have been a part of the temple complex. Bunyan is himself aware that there is controversy as to what building is being described, because he argues at some length that the House is not the Temple. He does, however assume that the House was built in a forest in Lebanon. Midgley traces the misunderstanding to an illustration in the 1579 edition of the Geneva Bible. 6

The form of The House is simple; there are ten chapters, each laying out a central type/antitype, and amplifying the relationship by quoting other scriptures with similar themes. In chapter one, Bunyan argues that the House of the Forest of Lebanon is not the temple, and in chapter two he explains why he believes that the House is a type of the persecuted church, or the "church in the wilderness." In chapter three he notes that the House is larger than the Temple, and concludes that the church grows under persecution. Chapter four deals with the great cedar pillars from which the House was made, comparing them to those saints who were "Gyants in Grace. These men had the Faces of Lyons: no Prince, no Threat, no Terror, no Torment, could make them yield." 7

In chapter five, Bunyan tries to explain the significance of verse four, "And there was Windows in three rows, and Light was against Light in three ranks." The Windows, he says, are the Word of God, and the three rows are the doctrine of the Trinity. He then makes a rather extraordinary mental leap to conclude that "Light against Light" has a military ring to it, and so must mean the spiritual warfare resulting from opposing interpretations of scripture held by Protestants and Roman Catholics. Chapter six corresponds to verse five, "And all the Doors, and Posts were Square, with the Windows." The word square he understands to mean "so exactly built, and consequently so compleat to view, that it was alluring to the Beholders." So, he says, the church is lovely, even in her persecuted state – so lovely that those who meet her "seek to ravish and defile her." 8 In chapter seven, Bunyan, consciously or not, follows the rabbinic theory that if something is repeated in scripture, it has an additional meaning the second time. The phrase "Light against Light in three ranks" is repeated in the text, and this time Bunyan interprets it as the controversy within the true church caused by "opposite perswasions, different apprehensions, and thwart conclusions" concerning "things of a lesser import." 8 These differences, though they cannot destroy the true church, are like smoke damage, and must be healed before the church can have true peace and prosperity.

Chapter eight talks about the gold shields that Solomon placed inside the house.10 Bunyan then notes that shields are defensive weapons, and argues that if the state will only leave the church alone, no one will get hurt. In chapter nine, Bunyan compares the gold vessels to the cups the Christian must drink – the bitter cup of afflictions and the sweet cup of consolation.11 The subject of chapter ten is the porch of the House which, he says, conceals the pillars within just as the real strength of the church is hidden from her enemies. The porch also plays an ambivalent role as both a place of refreshment, and a kind of antechamber where the uncommitted can come and go. Finally, Bunyan states his general conclusion: that the true church always has been and will be persecuted until the coming of Christ, for whom the saints must wait with patience.

.What, then, can be made of a book which claims that an almost certain misreading of Old Testament scripture is a message from the Holy Spirit to 17th century Christians? Starting from a rather doubtful premise, Bunyan creates a powerful work of encouragement, perhaps illustrating both the dangers and the advantages of the typological method.12 While his interpretation of specific words may be problematical, his understanding of the consistent intent of scripture understood in a symbolic mode is deep and thorough. I Kings may not, in fact, contain a message from the Holy Spirit to the non-conforming congregations; it would be harder to argue that The House of the Forest of Lebanon does not. It is perhaps humbling to our sense of control over meaning that a mistake, when so thoroughly supported by other scriptures, can be more "true" than many more correct perceptions.

The dense texture of the work shows Bunyan as an author who uses scripture with virtuosity. In each chapter, he establishes his basic type/antitype and then expands on the meaning by quoting scriptures with themes or words that echo the central ideas. He pulls images from the prophets, from the Song of Songs, from the Revelation, and from Paul. Sometimes the quotation will be a whole verse, sometimes he quotes a word or two, and sometimes there is only a reference to a verse that he has paraphrased. Blending naturally with the scriptural language are homely observations from his pastoral work. 12 As John Knott says, Bunyan "conflates Old and New Testaments and moves easily from their language to that of his everyday experience. " 14 The language and meaning of scripture is so much his own that he feels quite free to rearrange its parts into a new form that tells his story and that of his church. Scripture has become for Bunyan a second language which he can use to engage in extended meditation on spiritual reality in a style which might be called "stream-of-scripture-consciousness." The House of the Forest of Lebanon illustrates very well the mature Bunyan’s "gift for exploiting the dramatic potential of biblical metaphors and events in such a way as to give shape and meaning to the spiritual life of the people for whom he wrote."16

 

 

    1. Graham Midgley, introduction to The House of the Forest of Lebanon by John Bunyan, from The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan, vol. VII, general editor Roger Sharrock (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989), xxxvii
    2. Thomas Gataker, Shadowes without Substance, 69, quoted by Midgley in the introduction to The House, xvii
    3. Thomas Luxon, Literal Figures, Puritan Allegory and the Reformation Crisis in Representation, (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London, 1995), 40
    4. "I find not that I am denied the use

      5. Of this my method, so I no abuse

      Put on the words, things, readers; or be rude

      In handling figures or similitude,

      In application; "

      John Bunyan, The Author’s Apology for his Book, The Pilgrim’s Progress (Thomas Nelson and Sons, New York, Edinburgh, London, Toronto, and Paris), 5

    5. The House, II, 4, 27-29

      6.  

    6. The House of the Forest of Lebanon, IV, 16, 34-36

      7.  

    7. Bunyan then engages is some historical/spiritual speculation about the history of the early church., telling a story that takes the form of a Carmen style downright dirty women’s brawl. The Antichrist, he says, envied the beauty of the church, and dressed herself in purple; the church, unwilling for "this Slut to run away with this name," climbed up on the beast and threw the Antichrist Whore into the dirt. The Church then became accustomed to her lofty seat on the beast and began to act the Whore, re-arranging the Temple of God. The House, VI, 30, 8-23

      8.  

    8. Again, Bunyan has some problems with interpretation because one of his translations calls the large shields "targets" and the margin note on Goliath’s "target" calls it a "gorget." The New Jerusalem Bible translates the word as "javelin." At any rate, Bunyan decides that a gorget must be a neck shield of "old time," worn to protect fleeing soldiers, and concludes that the Christian soldier is made of sterner stuff, and will face the Enemy head on. Considering also the literal meaning of the "three hundred shields of beaten gold" (I Kings 10:17), a reader might question their usefulness in actual combat (Bunyan sees the House as a literal armoury). However, the gold shields make wonderful types for the faith of the saints, and thus Bunyan uses them quite effectively. The House, VIII

      9.  

    9. This chapter also contains a long non-typological section, namely a letter from a 16th century Italian prisoner, Pomponius Algerius, about his joy in tribulation, quoted from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

      10.  

    10. He is so convincing that his 19th century editor, Offer, flies in the face of the scholarly opinion of his own time and says, "It appears to me that common sense and the soundest evidence supports the view which Bunyan took, which was far in advance of the age in which he lived." Offer, Advertisement by the Editor, from The Complete Works of John Bunyan, (W.G. Blackie & Son, Glasgow, 1854, reprinted by First Banner of Truth Trust Edition, 1991), 511

      11.  

    11. "His misunderstandings are material for scholarly marginalia. The important thing is that his imagination was furnished with a beleaguered and fortified House, set in the wilderness of the Forest, and on this type he could build his book on the Church in the wilderness." Midgley, introduction to The House, xxxix

      12.  

    12. "I have known some that have been born and bred up in smokey-holes, that have been made, both in smell and sight, to carry the tokens of their so being bred, about with them. " Bunyan, The House, VII, 33, 29-32

      13.  

    13. John R. Knott Jr. The Sword of the Spirit, Puritan Responses to the Bible, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1971), 137

 

14. Ibid., p.131