The Works of John Bunyan, vol 3, John Bunyan [ebook reader color screen TXT] 📗

plain testimony of the Scriptures are, that Solomon would not have built this beautiful house at so great a distance from the capital—that he would not have risked so much treasure nor the munitions of war in a forest—and that he would not, on the extreme border of the kingdom of Judea, have set up a throne, or seat of judgment. The answer to these objections appears to me to be conclusive. Lebanon possessed the most commanding sites for a border fortress, and therefore an admirable depot for arms, to enable the Jewish warriors to keep out their most vigilant and dangerous enemies, the Assyrians. The wealth that was deposited in this house was calculated to excite greater vigilance to protect so important a pass, while it would divert the attention of an enemy from the still more wealthy temple and fortress at Jerusalem.

A throne of justice was well placed there, to save a long journey to the capital, for the trial of offenders, and the settlement of disputes on the borders of the empire. 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.

The way in which this building, with the purposes for which it was intended, is spiritualized, is very ingenious, and admirably carried through in the following treatise. Whether it was intended by the Holy Ghost to be typical, must be left to the judgment of the impartial reader. That Lebanon is used figuratively by the inspired writers there can be no doubt. ‘Lebanon is ashamed and hewn down,’ must be intended as a type of the church, when under the malice of her enemies. So also when Babylon, a type of Antichrist, fell, ‘the cedars of Lebanon rejoiced’; doubtless referring to the joy of God’s saints when relieved from the oppressor. Whether the fine old trees, or the splendid house built as a defence to prevent the approach of enemies to the temple, is intended as a type of the Christian warfare, is left to the impartial consideration of the reader. There is very little reason to doubt but that we shall adopt Bunyan’s view; if we consider the temple to be typical, we shall consider the house in the forest of Lebanon to be typical also.

It has been said, by an author of very great repute (Addison), that had Bunyan lived in the times of the Christian fathers, he would have been as great a father as the best of them. He stands unrivalled for most extraordinary mental powers for allegory and for spiritualizing, but to compare him with the best of the fathers is faint praise indeed. He was as much their superior, as the blaze of the noon-day sun excels the glimmer of a rushlight.

In this treatise we find many very admirable illustrations of two important subjects. One is, that temporal governors have nothing to fear from the spread of vital godliness: the other is upon the nature of the strife and antipathy felt by the world against Christ and his spiritual seed. They are sweet-scented; the fragrant smell of their graces excites the enmity of Satan and his followers, who would burn these cedars, because they are pillars of, and angels for, the truth. ‘Reason, history, and experience all confirm this truth; that a people, whose profession is directly in opposition to the devil, and antichrist, and to all debauchery, inhumanity, profaneness, superstition, and idolatry,’ will be hated, persecuted, and, if possible destroyed by Satan and his adherents. The secret is, that the world cannot bear such ‘living epistles, known and read of all men,’ which reflect so severely by their conduct upon the vice and profligacy of the worldling.

This was a stinging censure upon the profligate court of Charles II, and therefore the Nonconformists were hated and persecuted; while conformity to soul-benumbing rites and ceremonies was cherished and rewarded. To render persecution perfectly unjustifiable, Bunyan scripturally and plainly exhibits the harmlessness of the Christian character bearing with meekness the injuries heaped upon it; followers of him who, when reviled, reviled not again, but suffered patiently. It is a grievous mistake to suppose that vital godliness caused the great rebellion, and consequent beheading of King Charles I. It was frightful and most insupportable tyranny that drove a nation, headed by their parliament, to arms.

The King levied severe taxes without the consent of the people’s representatives; he perverted justice by the abominable decisions of the King’s judges in the court of Star Chamber; and attempted to introduce Popery through the medium of the Queen and her licentious court, composed principally of the worst class of foreign Papists.

And when Leighton, Prynne, Bastwick, and some of the most virtuous and enlightened citizens, justly but firmly remonstrated, they were seized and tortured in a way that the heart sickens with the narrative. It was an attempt to reduce the whole nation to the most abject slavery of both body and soul, that roused the spirit of the people to resistance. The solemn league and covenant was taken, Cromwell appeared, and the country was, by Divine aid, saved from utter desolation. It was not a war of religious sects; the Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and others, could never have coalesced; it was a war for liberty or despotism, and the principal of the warriors on both sides were attached to the religion that was by law established. It is true that many Episcopalians, in the reign of Charles II, charged the Puritans, not only as being the mainspring, but as possessing the overwhelming force in that awful struggle, forgetting that the Nonconformists were then but a handful of men, neither possessed of wealth nor influence. To attribute victory to so small a band, must refer it to the immediate interposition of the Most High, as in the case of Gideon in his victory over the Assyrians. But it was no sectarian fight, except those two great sects of freemen against despots. Bunyan fully proves that no state has anything to fear from religion: ‘She moveth no sedition, she abideth in her place; let her temple-worshippers but alone, and she will be as if she were not in the world’; ‘neither she nor her Jesus are for doing them any hurt.’ ‘God’s armour is no burthen to the body, nor clog to the mind, and it being only spiritual, the slaughter must needs be spiritual also.’ ‘All her privileges are soul concerns, they make no infringement upon any man’s liberties. Let but faith and holiness walk the streets without control, and you may be as happy as the world can make you.’

‘Let not kings, and princes, and potentates be afraid; the saints that are such indeed, know their places, and are of a peaceable deportment; the earth God hath given to the children of men, and his kingdom to the sons of God.’ The Christian is a pilgrim bound to a far more glorious inheritance: with so bright and glorious a prospect, he may well apply the encouraging language of Bunyan to his own soul; ‘I have a bad master, but I have only a year to serve under him, and that makes me serve him with patience. I have but a mile to go in this dirty way, and then I shall have my path pleasant and green, and this makes me tread the dirty way with patience.’

This treatise is one of the ten ‘excellent manuscripts’ which Bunyan had prepared for the press, when his unexpected decease prevented his publishing them. It first appeared in the folio volume of his works, printed under the care of Charles Doe, in 1692. It has since been re-published in every edition of Bunyan’s work, but with the omission of the Scripture references, and many errors.

It is now accurately corrected by the first edition.

GEO. OFFOR.

THE HOUSE OF THE FOREST OF LEBANON.

CHAPTER I.

As Solomon built a house for Pharaoh’s daughter, and that called the temple of the Lord; so he built a house in Lebanon, called ‘the house of the forest of Lebanon’ (1 Kings 7:2).

Some, I perceive, have thought that this house, called ‘the house of the forest of Lebanon,’ was none other than that called the temple at Jerusalem, and that that was called ‘The house of the forest of Lebanon,’ because built of the wood that grew there. But that Solomon built another than that, even one in Lebanon, called ‘the house of the forest of Lebanon,’ is evident, and that from these reasons:—

First, That in the forest of Lebanon is mentioned as another, besides that called the temple of the Lord; and that too when the temple and its finishing is spoken of; yea, it is mentioned with an ‘also,’ as an additional house, besides the temple of the Lord.

‘In the fourth year,’ saith the text, ‘was the foundation of the house of the Lord laid in the month Zif;[1] and in the eleventh year in the month Bul, which is the eighth month, was the house finished throughout all the parts thereof, and according to all the fashion of it; so he was seven years in building it.’ ‘But Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished all his house. He built also the house of the forest of Lebanon,’

&c. (1 Kings 6:37,38; 7:1,2).

Can there now be any thing more plain? Is not here the house of the forest of Lebanon mentioned as another besides the temple? he built the temple, he built his own house, he built also the house of the forest of Lebanon.

Second. It is evident by the difference of their measures and dimensions. The length of the temple was threescore cubits; but the length of the house of the forest of Lebanon was an hundred cubits; so that the house of the forest of Lebanon was forty cubits more than was that called Solomon’s temple: The breadth of Solomon’s temple was twenty cubits, but the breadth of the house of the forest of Lebanon was fifty cubits: And as there is odds between threescore and fivescore, so there is also between twenty and fifty.

As to their height, they were both alike; but equality in height can no more make them the same, than can a twenty years’ age in two, make them one and the same person.

Their porches also differed greatly; the porch of the temple was in length but twenty cubits, but the length of that of the house of the forest of Lebanon was fifty cubits. So that here also is thirty odds.[2] The porch of the temple was but ten cubits broad; but the porch of the house of the forest of Lebanon thirty cubits.

Now, I say, who that considereth these disproportions, can conclude that the house of the forest of Lebanon was none other than that called the temple of Jerusalem. For all this compare 1 Kings 6:2, 3 with 7:2, 6.

Third. If you add to these the different makes of the houses, it will sufficiently appear that they were not one. The house of the forest of Lebanon was built upon four rows of cedar pillars; but we read of no such pillars upon which the temple stood. The windows of the house of the forest of Lebanon stood in three rows, light against light; but we read of no such thing in the temple. The temple had two pillars before the door of its porch, but we read not of them before the door of the porch of the house of the forest of Lebanon. In the sixth and seventh chapters of the first book of Kings, these two houses, as to their make, are exactly set forth; so that he that listeth may search and see, if as to this I have not said the truth.

CHAPTER II.

OF WHAT THE