2. This work appears easy, yet few see it rightly. For where the parents are truly godly and love their children not just in human fashion, but (as they ought) instruct and direct them by words and works to serve God in the first three commandments, then in these eases the child’s own will is constantly broken. The child must do, not do, or put up with whatever his own nature would gladly have otherwise. Because of this he finds occasion to despise his parents, murmur against them, or worse. Love and fear depart when God’s grace is not there. Likewise, when parents quite properly—though at times unjustly—punish and chastise, the soul’s salvation is not imperiled; the evil nature is just unwilling to accept it. Besides all this, some are so wicked as to be ashamed of their parents because of their poverty, lowly birth, ugliness, or dishonor, and allow these things to influence them more than the high commandment of God, who is above all things and who has, with benevolent intent, given them such parents, to exercise and try them in his commandment. But the matter becomes still worse when the child in turn has children of his own. Then love for them increases, while the love and honor due to the parents declines.
But what is said and commanded of parents must also be understood of those who, when the parents are dead or not there, take their place, such as friends, relatives, godparents, temporal lords, and spiritual fathers. For everybody must be ruled and subject to other men. So we see here again how many good works are taught in this commandment, for in it all our life is made subject to other men. That is the reason obedience is so highly praised, and all virtue and good works are included in it” (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.82).
