|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: first, which is mingled with love and confidence.
II. This work appears easy, but few regard it aright. For where
the parents are truly pious and love their children not according
to the flesh, but (as they ought) instruct and direct them by
words and works to serve God according to the first three
Commandments, there the child's own will is constantly broken,
and it must do, leave undone, and suffer what its nature would
most gladly do otherwise; and thereby it finds occasion to
despise its parents, to murmur against them, or to do worse
things. There love and fear depart, unless they have God's grace.
In like manner, when they punish and chastise, as they ought (at
|
