The Riches of Bunyan: Selected from His Works

by John Bunyan

Many that show like saints abroad, yet act the part of devils when they are at home by giving way to this house-iniquity. This iniquity meeteth the man and his wife at the very threshold of the door, and will not suffer them to enter, no, not with one foot into the house, in peace: but how far this is from walking together as heirs of the grace of life, is easy to be determined. Men should carry it in love to their wives, as Christ doth to his church; and wives should carry it to their husbands, as the church ought to carry it to her Saviour, Eph. 5: 21-28; 1 Pet. 3: 7; and until each relation be managed with respect to these things, this house-iniquity will be cherished there. Oh, God sees within doors as well as without, and will judge too for the iniquity of the house as well as for that more open.

A man's house and his conduct there do more bespeak the nature and temper of his mind than all public profession. If I were to judge of a man for my life, I would not judge of him by his open profession, but by his domestic behaviors.

Open profession is like a man's best cloak, which is worn by him when he walks abroad, and with many is made but little use of at home. But now what a man is at home, that he is indeed. There is abroad, my house, my closet, my heart; and my house, my closet, show most what I am: though not to the world, yet to my family and to angels.

To make religion and the power of godliness the chief of my designs at home, before those among whom God by a special hand has placed me, is that which is pleasing to God, and which obtaineth a good report of him. Genesis 18:17-19.

CHARACTER OF TALKATIVE. He talketh of prayer, of repentance, of faith, and of the new birth; but he knows but only to talk of them. I have been in his family, and have observed him both at home and abroad. His house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savor. There is there neither prayer nor sign of repentance for sin; yea, the brute in his kind serves God far better than he. He is the very stain, reproach, and shame of religion to all that know him: it can hardly have a good word in all that end of the town where he dwells, through him. Thus say the common people, that know him, "A saint abroad and a devil at home." His poor family find it so: he is such a churl, such a railer at, and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for or speak to him.

Domestic iniquity stands also in the disorders of children and servants. Children's unlawful carriage to their parents is a great house-iniquity, yea, and a common one too. 2 Tim. 3:2, 3.

Disobedience to parents is one of the sins of the last days. O it is horrible to behold how irreverently, how saucily, and malpertly, children, yea, professing children, at this day carry it to their parents; snapping and checking, curbing and rebuking them, as if they had never received their being by them, or had never been beholden to them for bringing them up; yea, as if the relation was lost, or as if they had received a dispensation from God to dishonor and disobey parents.

I will add, that this sin reigns in little and great; for not only the small and young, but men are disobedient to their parents; and indeed this is the sin with a shame, that men shall be "disobedient to parents." Where nowadays shall we see children that are come to men and women's estate, carry it as by the word they are bound, to their aged and worn-out parents? I say, where is the honor they should put upon them? Who speak to their aged parents with that due regard to that relation, to their age, to their worn-out condition, that becomes them? Is it not common nowadays for parents to be brought into bondage and servitude by their children; for parents to be under, and children above; for parents to be debased, and children to lord it over them?

This sin is, I fear, grown to such a height in some, as to make them weary of their parents, and of doing their duty to them. Yea, I wish that some be not murderers of fathers and mothers by their thoughts, while they secretly long after and desire their death, that the inheritance may be theirs, and that they may be delivered from obedience to their parents. 1 Tim. 1:9. This is a sin in the house, in the family; a sin that is kept close; but God sees it, and has declared his dislike against it, by an implicit threatening to cut them off that are guilty of it. Eph. 5:1-3.

Many that have had very hopeful beginnings for heaven, have, by virtue of the mischiefs that have attended unlawful marriages, Deut. 7:4,5; 2 Cor. 6:14, miserably and fearfully miscarried. Soon after such marriages, conviction, the first step towards heaven, hath ceased; prayers, the next step towards heaven, have ceased; hungerings and thirstings after salvation, another step towards the kingdom of heaven, have ceased. In a word, such marriages have estranged them from the word, from their godly and faithful friends, and have brought them again into carnal company, among carnal friends, and also into carnal delights; where and with whom they have, in conclusion, both sinfully abode and miserably perished.