“This third point seems to me to be the most important of all, as well as being the most useful. For without a shadow of doubt it is not only a matter of marital obligation, but can completely eclipse all other sins. False natural love blinds parents so that they have more regard for the bodies of their children than they have for their souls. It was because of this that the sage said, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him” [Prov. 13:24]. Again, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him” [Prov. 22:15]. Or again, “If you beat him with the rod you will save his life from hell” [Prov. 23:14].
Therefore, it is of the greatest importance for every married man to pay closer, more thorough, and continuous attention to the health of his child’s soul than to the body which he has begotten, and to regard his child as nothing else but an eternal treasure God has commanded him to protect, and so prevent the world, the flesh, and the devil from stealing the child away and bringing him to destruction. For at his death and on the day of judgment he will be asked about his child and will have to give a most solemn account. For what do you think is the cause of the horrible wailing and howling of those who will cry, “O blessed are the wombs which have not bore children, and the breasts which have never suckled” [Luke 23:29]? There is not the slightest doubt that it is because they have failed to restore their children to God, from whom they received them to take care of them” (Luther’s Works, vol. 44, p.13).