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?