The Palace Beautiful

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God. EPHESIANS 2:19

At the top of the Hill Difficulty, past the chained lions, stands a very stately palace by the highway side. Its name is Beautiful. The porter tells Christian that it was built by the Lord of the hill for the relief and security of pilgrims. Here Christian is received, questioned, fed, rested, taught and armed, and sent on his way with friends walking beside him down the hill.

Almost every reader of Bunyan has understood the Palace Beautiful as a picture of the local church. Bunyan never says so outright, but the details make it plain, and it is worth remembering who drew it. Bunyan belonged all his adult life to a small gathered congregation in Bedford — the people who took him in when he was a troubled young tinker, who taught him, examined him, received him, and later chose him as their pastor while he lay in prison. The Palace Beautiful is his thank-offering to them.

Received after conversation

Christian does not simply walk in. The porter, Watchful, rings a bell and calls a grave and beautiful damsel named Discretion, who asks Christian where he is from, where he is going, how he got into the way and what he has met on it. Then she asks his name. When he answers, she smiles, but the water stands in her eyes, and she calls Prudence, Piety and Charity, who talk with him further and then bring him into the family. Many of the household meet him at the threshold and say: Come in, thou blessed of the Lord.

This reflects the practice of Bunyan’s own church, which received members by hearing their account of God’s dealings with their souls. Some modern readers find that intrusive. But notice the spirit of it. Discretion’s questions are not an interrogation. She wants to know the story, and when she hears it she weeps for joy. The church is not a club that admits anyone indifferently, nor a court that tries candidates. It is a household that rejoices to recognise a brother or a sister.

Bunyan also held, against many of his fellow Baptists, that disagreement over baptism should not bar believers from fellowship at the Lord’s Table, and he wrote more than one book on the point. His Palace receives pilgrims because they have come through the gate and by the cross, not because they belong to a party.

Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. ROMANS 15:7

Piety, Prudence and Charity

Piety asks about the journey — what moved him to become a pilgrim, what he saw at the Interpreter’s house, what he saw at the cross. She is teaching him to remember and to testify. Christian says that the things he has told her were the best, and he means the cross.

Prudence asks about the inner life. Does he think of the country he came from? Does he still carry some of its thoughts with him? Christian answers honestly that he does, greatly against his will; when he would do the best, the worst is with him. Does he find those things sometimes vanquished? Yes, he says, but seldom, and those are golden hours to him. And how are they vanquished? Here Christian gives an answer worth learning by heart: “when I think what I saw at the cross, that will do it”; and so will looking at his coat, reading his roll, and letting his thoughts grow warm about where he is going.

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. ROMANS 7:18

This is Bunyan’s whole practical theology of holiness in a few lines. Indwelling sin remains. Victory is real but not constant. And the means of victory is not self-scrutiny but looking away from self: to the cross, to the righteousness given, to the promise held, to the glory ahead.

Charity asks about his family. Why did he not bring them? Christian weeps. He tried, he says; he talked to them, prayed for them, showed them his fears over and over; but his wife was afraid of losing this world and his children were given to the foolish delights of youth. Charity presses him: did his own vain life undo his words? Christian admits many failings, but says that if anything in him hindered them, it was his tenderness about sinning against God, for which they called him too precise.

Table, study and armoury

Supper follows, and all the talk at table is of the Lord of the hill: that He had been a great warrior, and had fought with and slain him that had the power of death, but not without great danger to Himself, and with the loss of much blood; and that He did it out of pure love. The church’s table-talk, in Bunyan’s dream, is Christ.

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. HEBREWS 2:14

In the morning they show him the study, with its records of the Lord’s pedigree and acts, the deeds of His servants, and, above all, how willing their Lord is to receive into His favour any, even any, though they have offered Him great affronts in time past. The church is a place of memory and instruction, where the new believer learns the story he has joined.

Then they take him to the armoury, where the Lord has provided sword, shield, helmet, breastplate, all-prayer and shoes that will not wear out, enough to harness as many men as there are stars in the sky. They show him Moses’ rod, Jael’s hammer and nail, Gideon’s trumpets, Samson’s jawbone and David’s sling. From the roof they show him, far off, the Delectable Mountains. And before he leaves, they harness him from head to foot, lest he meet with assaults in the way.

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. EPHESIANS 6:11

Sent out, not shut in

The last thing to notice about the Palace Beautiful is that Christian leaves it. He would gladly stay, and they would gladly keep him, but he has further to go. The church in Bunyan’s dream is not the destination; it is a house by the highway, built for the relief and security of pilgrims on their way. It feeds, rests, teaches and arms them, and then it walks with them to the gate and sends them on.

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. HEBREWS 10:25

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Are you a member of a local church, belonging to a household and not merely visiting? If not, what is holding you back?

2. Ask Prudence’s question of yourself: by what means do you find your sins vanquished? Is it by looking at the cross, or by looking at yourself?

3. Think of one new believer in your church. How could you be Discretion to them — asking to hear their story, and rejoicing in it?

4. Pray for anyone in your church grieving over family who will not come.

5. Examine the armoury of Ephesians 6:10–18. Which piece have you been leaving on the rack?

A PRAYER

Lord of the hill, thank You for the house You built by the highway for weary pilgrims, and for the people who took me in.

Make Your church in my day a Palace Beautiful: a place of welcome, of honest questions and tender answers, of table-talk about You.

When my sins trouble me, turn my eyes to what I saw at the cross. Arm me from head to foot for what lies ahead.

And let me be to others what Discretion, Piety, Prudence and Charity were to Christian, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.