5. Thus it is true, as men say, that parents could attain salvation by training their own children, even if they were to do nothing else. If parents do this by rightly training them to God’s service, they will indeed have their hands full of good works. For what are the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the alien if not the souls of your own children? With these God makes a hospital of your own house. He sets you over them as the hospital superintendent, to wait on them, to give them the food and drink of good words and works. [He sets you over them] that they may learn to trust God, to believe in him, to fear him, and to set their whole hope upon him; to honor his name and never curse or swear; to mortify themselves by praying, fasting, watching, working; to go to church, wait on the word of God, and observe the sabbath. [He sets you over them] that they may learn to despise temporal things, to bear misfortune without complaint, and neither fear death nor love this life.

… It has been said in reference to the other commandments that they are to be fulfilled in relation to faith, the chief work. It is the same in this instance. Nobody must think that the training and teaching of his children is sufficient in itself. It must be done in confidence of God’s favor. A man must have no doubt that he is well pleasing to God in what he is doing, and he should let work of this kind be nothing else but an expression and exercise of his faith. He should trust in God and look to him for blessings and a gracious will. Without faith of this kind no work is a genuine living work: it is neither good nor acceptable. Many heathen have brought their children up charmingly, but all that is lost because of their unbelief. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.85, 86-87).

Here some men say, “How then could I bring my children into society and make proper marriage settlements? I must make some show.” Tell me, are not these the words of a heart which doubts God and trusts more in its own providing than in God’s care? Yet St. Peter teaches and says, “Cast all your care on him and be certain he cares for you” [I Pet. 5:7]. It is a sign that they have never yet thanked God for their children, have never yet rightly prayed for them, have never yet commended them to him. Had they done so, they would have known from their own experience that they should also ask God to settle the marriage of their children and wait upon his guidance. Because they do not do this, he just lets them go their own way, bringing cares and worries on themselves; and even then they do not order their lives well. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.84-85).

4. Now children are not to obey parents who are so foolish that they bring up their children after the fashion of this world. God is to be more highly regarded than parents according to the first three commandments. I call it being brought up after the fashion of the world when parents teach their children to seek nothing but the pleasure, honor, possessions, or power of this world.

To wear decent clothes and seek an honest living is a necessity, not a sin. Yet in his heart a child must be reconciled to the fact that it is an awful pity that this miserable earthly life cannot well be lived, or even begun, without the striving after more adornment and more possessions than are necessary to protect the body against cold and for nourishment. Thus the child must be taught to do against its own will what the world wants. The child must put up with fools and with that kind of evil for the sake of something better and to avoid something worse. Queen Esther wore her royal crown, but yet she said to God, “Thou knowest that the sign of my high estate which is upon my head has never at all delighted me, and that I abhor it as a filthy, menstruous rag. I never wear it when I am alone, but only when I have to and when I face the people.” The heart that is so minded wears adornment without peril, for it wears and yet does not wear, it dances yet does not dance, it lives well yet does not live well. And souls such as this are the secret hidden brides of Christ. But such souls are rare, for it is hard not to take delight in great adornment and display. Thus St. Cecilia wore golden clothes at the command of her parents, but underneath she wore a hair shirt next to her skin. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.83-84).

Thus God’s commandment falls absolutely to the ground, unwittingly, and ostensibly for good reasons. Then is fulfilled that which is written in the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, that the children are destroyed by their own parents [Isa. 57:5; Jer. 7:31; 32:35]. They do what King Manasseh did. This king sacrificed his son to the idol Molech and burned him.⁴⁷ What else is it but to sacrifice one’s own child to an idol and burn it when parents train their children more in the love of the world than in the love of God, and let their children go their own way and get burned up in worldly pleasure, love, enjoyment, lust, goods, and honor, but let God’s love and honor and the love of eternal blessings be extinguished in them?

O how perilous it is to be a father or mother, where only flesh and blood are supreme! Indeed, it is because parents are commanded to teach their children that the knowledge and keeping of the first three and the last six commandments depend on this commandment. As Psalm 78[:5–6] says, “How strictly has God commanded our fathers to make known his commandments to their children, that the generation to come might know them and declare them to their children’s children.” This is also the reason God bids us honor our parents, that is, to love them with fear; for that other love is without fear, therefore, it is more dishonor than honor.

Now see whether everyone does not have enough good works to do, whether he be father or child. But we, blind men that we are, neglect such works as these and seek elsewhere all sorts of other works which are not commanded. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.83).