#62- God’s Word Exposed the formerly UnChristian Monastic Schools

First of all, we are today experiencing in all the German lands how schools are everywhere being left to go to wrack and ruin. The universities are growing weak, and monasteries are declining. The grass withers and the flower fades, as Isaiah [40:7–8] says, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it through his word and shines upon it so hot through the gospel. For now it is becoming known through God’s word how un-Christian these institutions are, and how they are devoted only to men’s bellies. The carnal-minded masses are beginning to realize that they no longer have either the obligation or the opportunity to thrust their sons, daughters, and relatives into cloisters and foundations, and to turn them out of their own homes and property and establish them in others’ property. For this reason no one is any longer willing to have his children get an education. “Why,” they say, “should we bother to have them go to school if they are not to become priests, monks, or nuns? ‘Twere better they should learn a livelihood to earn.”

The thoughts and purposes of such people are plainly evident from this confession of theirs. If in the cloisters and foundations, or the spiritual estate, they had been seeking not only the belly and the temporal welfare of their children but were earnestly concerned for their children’s salvation and eternal bliss, they would not thus fold their hands and relapse into indifference, saying, “If the spiritual estate is no longer to be of any account, we can just as well let education go and not bother our heads about it.” Instead, they would say, “If it be true, as the gospel teaches, that this {monastic} estate is a perilous one for our children, then, dear sirs, show us some other way which will be pleasing to God and of benefit to them. For we certainly want to provide not only for our children’s bellies, but for their souls as well.” At least that is what truly Christian parents would say about it (Luther’s Works, v. 45 p. 348-349).

#61- Children Know Why Parents Discipline: Love

This is the measure and goal of all punishments and vexations, just as parents chastise their children in order that they may be corrected and return to the way, not because parents plan to destroy or disinherit them; for this would be alien to the love put into their hearts by God. And in Eph. 6:4 and Col. 3:21 Paul is careful to warn them not to provoke their children to wrath, lest they become discouraged. The chastisement should be of such a kind that love and filial confidence toward parents and teachers remain and that children understand that they are not suffering correction for their destruction, but rather that they may continue to do their duty and show their father no cause to disinherit them because of their wickedness. It is usual for this to happen to those who cannot be corrected by words or blows and later incur punishment at the hands of a judge or executioner because of thefts, robberies, or other outrages after they have thrown off paternal authority. (Luther’s Works, v. 7 p.254).

#60 The Entrusted Children

6. On the other hand, parents cannot earn hell more easily than by neglecting their own children in their own home and by not teaching them the things spoken of above. What use is it if they fast themselves to death, pray, go on pilgrimages, and do all manner of good works? After all, God will not ask them about these in the hours of death and on the day of judgment, but will require of them the children he entrusted to their care. This is shown by the word of Christ in Luke 23[:28–29], “You daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me but for yourselves and your children. The days will come when they will say, ‘Blessed are the wombs that never bore, and the breasts which never gave suck!’ ” Why should they lament in this way if it does not mean that all their condemnation will come from their own children? If they had not had children, perhaps they might have been saved. These words certainly ought to open the eyes of parents and make them think about the souls of their children so that the poor children would not be deceived by the parents’ human love and made to believe they had rightly honored their parents because they had not shown anger toward them or had been obedient to them in everyday affairs. This serves only to strengthen the children’s self-will, although the commandment puts the parents in the place of honor so that the children’s self-will is broken and they are made humble and meek.

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.86-87).

#59 What A Blessed Marriage and Home

Just think what a great lesson this is! How many good works you have at hand in your own home with your own child who needs all such things as these like a hungry, thirsty, naked, poor, imprisoned, sick soul! O what a blessed marriage and home that would be with such parents! That home would indeed be a true church, a chosen cloister, yes, a paradise! It was of such places that the psalmist sang in Psalm 128[:1–4], “Blessed are they that fear God and walk in his commandments. You shall eat of the labor of your hands. On this account shall you be happy and all will go well with you. Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in your house, and your children like the young shoots of laden olive trees around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears God.” Where are such parents? Where are those who inquire after good works such as these? Nobody comes forward. Why? Because God has commanded these works! The flesh and the devil pull you away from these works. There is no pomp or show about them; therefore, we assume they are worth nothing. Husbands run to St. James, wives make vows to Our Lady. No one vows to train and teach himself and his child to honor God properly. Those whom God has commanded a man to keep in body and soul he leaves behind, and wants to serve God in some place or another, something that was never commanded. No bishop forbids and no preacher rebukes such a perverse practice. In fact, in the interests of their own covetousness the clergy endorse such practices. Every day they think up more and more pilgrimages, canonizations of saints, and indulgence fairs. May God have mercy on such blindness! (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.85-86).

#58 All The Good Works You Need To Do Waiting At Home

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).

#57 Not Trusting God With Our Children

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).

#56 Brought Up After the Fashion of the World

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).

#55 Sacrificing Your Child By Letting Them Go Their Own Way

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).

#54 Undisciplined Children Because of “Natural Love” Dishonors 4th Commandment

3. There is still another kind of dishonoring of parents, much more dangerous and subtle than this first, [a dishonoring] which decks itself out and lets itself be regarded as a true honoring of parents. That is when a child has its own way and the parents allow it to do so out of natural love. In this case they honor one another and love one another. On all sides it is a precious thing; the mother and father are pleased and the child is pleased.

This plague is so common that instances of the first kind of dishonoring are very rarely seen. This second kind of dishonoring arises from the fact that the parents have been blinded and neither know nor honor God in the sense of the first three commandments. For this reason they cannot see what the children lack, or how they ought to teach them and bring them up. It is only to please men and to get ahead that they train their children for worldly honors, pleasure, and possessions. The children like this, and, of course, they obey very gladly without any back talk. (Luther’s Works, v. 44 p.82-83).

#53 Godly Parents Break Their Children’s Sinful Will

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).