Good works (Theology); Lutheran Church -- Doctrines
V. Thus it is true, as men say, that parents, although they had nothing
else to do, could attain salvation by training their own children; if
they rightly train them to God's service, they will indeed have both
hands full of good works to do. For what else are here the hungry,
thirsty, naked, imprisoned, sick, strangers, than the souls of your own
children? with whom God makes of your house a hospital, and sets you
over them as chief nurse, to wait on them, to give them good words and
works as meat and drink, that they may learn to trust, believe and fear
God, and to place their hope on Him, to honor His Name, not to swear
nor curse, to mortify themselves by praying, fasting, watching,
working, to attend worship and to hear God's Word, and to keep the
Sabbath, that they may learn to despise temporal things, to bear
misfortune calmly, and not to fear death nor to love this life.
See, what great lessons are these, how many good works you have before
you in your home, with your child, that needs all these things like a
hungry, thirsty, naked, poor, imprisoned, sick soul. O what a blessed
marriage and home were that where such parents were to be found! Truly
it would be a real Church, a chosen cloister, yea, a paradise. Of such
says Psalm cxxviii: "Blessed are they that fear God, and walk in His
Commandments; thou shalt eat of the labor of thine hands; therefore
thou shalt be happy, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be
as a fruitful vine in thine house, and thy children shall be as the
young scions of laden olive trees about thy table. Behold, thus shall
the man be blessed, that feareth the Lord," etc. Where are such
parents? Where are they that ask after good works? Here none wishes to
come. Why? God has commanded it; the devil, flesh and blood pull away
from it; it makes no show, therefore it counts for nothing. Here this
husband runs to St. James, that wife vows a pilgrimage to Our Lady; no
one vows that he will properly govern and teach himself and his child
to the honor of God; he leaves behind those whom God has commanded him
to keep in body and soul, and would serve God in some other place,
which has not been commanded him. Such perversity no bishop forbids, no
preacher corrects; nay, for covetousness' sake they confirm it and
daily only invent more pilgrimages, elevations of saints,
indulgence-fairs. God have pity on such blindness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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