of it, His only, dear Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who on the Sabbath
lay in the tomb the entire day of rest, free from all His works, and
was the first to fulfil this Commandment, although He needed it not for
Himself, but only for our comfort, that we also in all suffering and
death should be quiet and have peace. Since, as Christ was raised up
after His rest and henceforth lives only in God and God in Him, so also
shall we by the death of our Adam, which is perfectly accomplished only
through natural death and burial, be lifted up into God, that God may
live and work in us forever. Lo! these are the three parts of man:
reason, desire, aversion; in which all his works are done. These,
therefore, must be slain by these three exercises, God's governance,
our self-mortification, the hurt done to us by others; and so they must
spiritually rest before God, and give Him room for His works.
XXIV. But such works are to be done and such sufferings to be endured
in faith and in sure confidence of God's favor, in order that, as has
been said, all works remain in the First Commandment and in faith, and
that faith, for the sake of which all other commandments and works are
ordained, exercise and strengthen itself in them. See, therefore, what
a pretty, golden ring these three Commandments and their works
naturally form, and how from the First Commandment and faith the Second
flows on to the Third, and the Third in turn drives through the Second
up into the First. For the first work is to believe, to have a good
heart and confidence toward God. From this flows the second good work,
to praise God's Name, to confess His grace, to give all honor to Him
alone. Then follows the third, to worship by praying, hearing God's
Word, thinking of and considering God's benefits, and in addition
chastising one's self, and keeping the body under.
But when the evil spirit perceives such faith, such honoring of God and
such worship, he rages and stirs up persecution, attacks body, goods,
honor and life, brings upon us sickness, poverty, shame and death,
which God so permits and ordains. See, here begins the second work, or
the second rest of the Third Commandment; by this faith is very greatly
tried, even as gold in the fire. For it is a great thing to retain a
sure confidence in God, although He sends us death, shame, sickness,
poverty; and in this cruel form of wrath to regard Him as our
all-gracious Father, as must be done in this work of the Third
Commandment. Here suffering contains faith, that it must call upon
God's Name and praise it in such suffering, and so it comes through the
Third Commandment into the Second again; and through that very calling
on the Name of God and praise, faith grows, and becomes conscious of
itself, and so strengthens itself, through the two works of the Third
and of the Second Commandment. Thus faith goes out into the works and
through the works comes to itself again; just as the sun goes forth
unto its setting and comes again unto its rising. For this reason the
Scriptures associate the day with peaceful living in works, the night
with passive living in adversity, and faith lives and works, goes out
and comes in, in both, as Christ says, John ix.
XXV. This order of good works we pray in the Lord's Prayer. The first
is this, that we say: "Our Father, Who art in heaven"; these are the
words of the first work of faith, which, according to the First
Commandment, does not doubt that it has a gracious Father in heaven.
The second: "Hallowed be Thy Name," in which faith asks that God's
Name, praise and honor be glorified, and calls upon it in every need,
as the Second Commandment says. The third: "Thy kingdom come," in which
we pray for the true Sabbath and rest, peaceful cessation of our works,
that God's work alone be done in us, and so God rule in us as in His
own kingdom, as He says, Luke xvii, "Behold, God's kingdom is nowhere
else except within you." The fourth petition is "Thy will be done"; in
which we pray that we may keep and have the Seven Commandments of the
Second Table, in which faith is exercised toward our neighbor; just as
in the first three it is exercised in works toward God alone. And these
are the petitions in which stands the word "Thou, Thy, Thy, Thy,"
because they seek only what belongs to God; all the others say "our,
us, our," etc; for in them we pray for our goods and blessedness.
Let this, then, suffice as a plain, hasty explanation of the First
Table of Moses, pointing out to simple folk what are the highest of
good works.
The Second Table follows.
"Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother."
From this Commandment we learn that after the excellent works of the
first three Commandments there are no better works than to obey and
serve all those who are set over us as superiors. For this reason also
disobedience is a greater sin than murder, unchastity, theft and
dishonesty, and all that these may include. For we can in no better
way learn how to distinguish between greater and lesser sins than by
noting the order of the Commandments of God, although there are
distinctions also within the works of each Commandment. For who does
not know that to curse is a greater sin than to be angry, to strike
than to curse, to strike father and mother more than to strike any one
else? Thus these seven Commandments teach us how we are to exercise
ourselves in good works toward men, and first of all toward our
superiors.
The first work is that we honor our own father and mother. And this
honor consists not only in respectful demeanor, but in this: that we
obey them, look up to, esteem and heed their words and example, accept
what they say, keep silent and endure their treatment of us, so long as
it is not contrary to the first three Commandments; in addition, when
they need it, that we provide them with food, clothing and shelter. For
not for nothing has He said: "Thou shalt honor them"; He does not say:
"Thou shalt love them," although this also must be done. But honor is
higher than mere love and includes a certain fear, which unites with
love, and causes a man to fear offending them more than he fears the
punishment. Just as there is fear in the honor we pay a sanctuary, and
yet we do not flee from it as from a punishment, but draw near to it
all the more. Such a fear mingled with love is the true honor; the
other fear without any love is that which we have toward things which
we despise or flee from, as we fear the hangman or punishment. There is
no honor in that, for it is a fear without all love, nay, fear that has
with it hatred and enmity. Of this we have a proverb of St. Jerome:
What we fear, that we also hate. With such a fear God does not wish to
be feared or honored, nor to have us honor our parents; but with the
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 times even unjustly, which, however, does not harm the soul's
salvation), our evil nature resents the correction. Beside all this,
there are some so wicked that they are ashamed of their parents because
of poverty, lowly birth, deformity or dishonor, and allow these things
to influence them more than the high Commandment of God, Who is above
all things, and 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 has children of its own; then love descends to
them, and detracts very much from the love and honor toward the parents.
But what is said and commanded of parents must also be understood of
those who, when the parents are dead or absent, take their place, such
as relatives, god-parents, sponsors, temporal lords and spiritual
fathers. For every one must be ruled and be subject to other men.
Wherefore we here see again how many good works are taught in this
Commandment, since in it all our life is made subject to other men.
Hence it comes that obedience is so highly praised and all virtue and
good works are included in it.
III. There is another dishonoring of parents, much more dangerous and
subtile than this first, which adorns itself and passes for a real
honor; that is, when a child has its own way, and the parents through
natural love allow it. Here there is indeed mutual honor, here there is
mutual love, and on all sides it is a precious thing, parents and child
take mutual pleasure in one another.
This plague is so common that instances of the first form of
dishonoring are very seldom seen. This is due to the fact that the
parents are blinded, and neither know nor honor God according to the
first three Commandments; hence also they cannot see what the children
lack, and how they ought to teach and train them. For this reason they
train them for worldly honors, pleasure and possessions, that they may
by all means please men and reach high positions: this the children
like, and they obey very gladly without gainsaying.
Thus God's Commandment secretly comes to naught while all seems good,
and that is fulfilled which is written in the Prophets Isaiah and
Jeremiah, that the children are destroyed by their own parents, and
they do like the king Manasseh, who sacrificed his own son to the idol
Moloch and burned him, II. Kings xxi. What else is it but to sacrifice
one's own child to the idol and to burn it, when parents train their
children more in the way of the world than in the way of God? let them
go their way, and be burned up in worldly pleasure, love, enjoyment,
possessions and honor, but let God's love and honor and the desire of
eternal blessings be quenched in them?
O how perilous it is to be a father or a mother, where flesh and blood
are supreme! For, truly, the knowledge and fulfilment of the first
three and the last six Commandments depends altogether upon this
Commandment; since parents are commanded to teach them to their
children, as Psalm lxxviii. says, "How strictly has He commanded our
fathers, that they should make known God's Commandments to their
children, that the generation to come might know them and declare them
to their children's children." This also is the reason why 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 every one does not have good works enough to do,
whether he be father or child. But we blind men leave this untouched,
and seek all sorts of other works which are not commanded.
IV. Now where parents are foolish and train their children after the
fashion of the world, the children are in no way to obey them; for God,
according to the first three Commandments, is to be more highly
regarded than the parents. But training after the fashion of the world
I call it, when they teach them to seek no more than pleasure, honor
and possessions of this world or its power.
To wear decent clothes and to seek an honest living is a necessity, and
not sin. Yet the heart of a child must be taught to be sorry that this
miserable earthly life cannot well be lived, or even begun, without the
striving after more adornment and more possessions than are necessary
for the protection of the body against cold and for nourishment. Thus
the child must be taught to grieve that, without its own will, it must
do the world's will and play the fool with the rest of men, and endure
such evil for the sake of something better and to avoid something
worse. So Queen Esther wore her royal crown, and yet said to God,
Esther xiv, "Thou knowest, that the sign of my high estate, which is
upon my head, has never yet delighted me, and I abhor it as a
menstruous rag, and never wear it when I am by myself, but when I must
do it and go before the people." The heart that is so minded wears
adornment without peril; for it wears and does not wear, dances and
does not dance, lives well and does not live well. And these are the
secret souls, hidden brides of Christ, but they are rare; for it is
hard not to delight in great adornment and parade. Thus St. Cecilia
wore golden clothes at the command of her parents, but within against
her body she wore a garment of hair.
Here some men say: "How then could I bring my children into society,
and marry them honorably? I must make some display." Tell me, are not
these the words of a heart which despairs of God, and trusts more on
its own providing than on God's care? Whereas St. Peter teaches and
says, I. Peter v, "Cast all your care upon Him, and be certain that He
cares for you." 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; otherwise they would know and have experienced
that they ought to ask God also for the marriage dower of their
children, and await it from Him. Therefore also He permits them to go
their way, with cares and worries, and yet succeed poorly.
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.
VI. On the other hand, parents cannot earn eternal punishment in any
way more easily than by neglecting their own children in their own
home, and not teaching them the things which have been spoken of above.
Of what help is it, that they kill themselves with fasting, praying,
making pilgrimages, and do all manner of good works? God will, after
all, not ask them about these things at their death and in the day of
judgment, but will require of them the children whom He entrusted to
them. This is shown by that word of Christ, Luke xxiii, "Ye daughters
of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but for yourselves and for your
children. The days are coming, in which they shall say: Blessed are the
wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck." Why shall
they lament, except because all their condemnation comes from their own
children? If they had not had children, perhaps they might have been
saved. Truly, these words ought to open the eyes of parents, that they
may have regard to the souls of their children, so that the poor
children be not deceived by their false, fleshly love, as if they had
rightly honored their parents when they are not angry with them, or are
obedient in worldly matters, by which their self-will is strengthened;
although the Commandment places the parents in honor for the very
purpose that the self-will of the children may be broken, and that the
children may become humble and meek.
Just as it has been said of the other Commandments, that they are to be
fulfilled in the chief work, so here too let no one suppose that the
training and teaching of his children is sufficient of itself, except
it be done in confidence of divine favor, so that a man doubt not that
he is wellpleasing to God in his works, and that he let such works be
nothing else than an exhortation and exercise of his faith, that he
trust God and look to Him for blessings and a gracious will; without
which faith no work lives, or is good and acceptable; for many heathen
have trained their children beautifully, but it is all lost, because of
their unbelief.
VII. The second work of this Commandment is to honor and obey the
spiritual mother, the holy Christian Church, the spiritual power, so
that we conform to what she commands, forbids, appoints, orders, binds
and looses, and honor, fear and love the spiritual authority as we
honor, love and fear our natural parents, and yield to it in all things
which are not contrary to the first three Commandments.
Now with regard to this work, things are almost worse than with regard
to the first. The spiritual authority should punish sin with the ban
and with laws, and constrain its spiritual children to be good, in
order that they might have reason to do this work and to exercise
themselves in obeying and honoring it. Such zeal one does not see now;
they act toward their subjects like the mothers who forsake their
children and run after their lovers, as Hosea ii. says; they do not
preach, they do not teach, they do not hinder, they do not punish, and
there is no spiritual government at all left in Christendom.
What can I say of this work? A few fast-days and feast-days are left,
and these had better be done away with. But no one gives this a
thought, and there is nothing left except the ban for debt, and this
should not be. But spiritual authority should look to it, that
adultery, unchastity, usury, gluttony, worldly show, excessive
adornment, and such like open sin and shame might be most severely
punished and corrected; and they should properly manage the endowments,
monastic houses, parishes and schools, and earnestly maintain worship
in them, provide for the young people, boys and girls, in schools and
cloisters, with learned, pious men as teachers, that they might all be
well trained, and so the older people give a good example and
Christendom be filled and adorned with fine young people. So St. Paul
teaches his disciple Titus, that he should rightly instruct and govern
all classes, young and old, men and women. But now he goes to school
who wishes; he is taught who governs and teaches himself; nay, it has,
alas! come to such a pass that the places where good should be taught
have become schools of knavery, and no one at all takes thought for the
wild youth.
VIII. If the above order prevailed, one could say how honor and
obedience should be given to the spiritual authority. But now the case
is like that of the natural parents who let their children do as they
please; at present the spiritual authority threatens, dispenses, takes
money, and pardons more than it has power to pardon. I will here
refrain from saying more; we see more of it than is good; greed holds
the reins, and just what should be forbidden is taught; and it is
clearly seen that the spiritual estate is in all things more worldly
than the worldly estate itself. Meanwhile Christendom must be ruined,
and this Commandment perish.
If there were a bishop who would zealously provide for all these
classes, supervise, make visitations and be faithful as he ought,
truly, one city would be too much for him. For in the time of the
Apostles, when Christendom was at its best estate, each city had a
bishop, although the smallest part of the inhabitants were Christians.
How may things go when one bishop wants to have so much, another so
much, this one the whole world, that one the fourth of it.
It is time that we pray God for mercy. Of spiritual power we have much;
but of spiritual government nothing or little. Meanwhile may he help
who can, that endowments, monastic houses, parishes and schools be well
established and managed; and it would also be one of the works of the
spiritual authority that it lessen the number of endowments, monastic
houses and schools, where they cannot be cared for. It is much better
that there be no monastic house or endowment than that there be evil
government in them, whereby God is the more provoked to anger.
IX. Since, then, the authorities so entirely neglect their work, and
are perverted, it must assuredly follow that they misuse their power,
and undertake other and evil works, just as parents do when they give
some command contrary to God. Here we must be wise; for the Apostle has
said, that those times shall be perilous in which such authorities
shall rule. For it seems as if we resisted their power if we do not do
and leave undone all that they prescribe. Therefore we must take hold
of the first three Commandments and the First Table, and be certain
that no man, neither bishop, nor pope, nor angel, may command or
determine anything that is contrary to or hinders these three
Commandments, or does not help them; and if they attempt such things,
it is not valid and amounts to nothing; and we also sin if we follow
and obey, or even tolerate such acts.
From this it is easy to understand that the commands of fasting do not
include the sick, the pregnant women, or those who for other reasons
cannot fast without injury. And, to rise higher, in our time nothing
comes from Rome but a fair of spiritual wares, which are openly and
shamelessly bought and sold, indulgences, parishes, monastic houses,
bishoprics, provostships, benefices, and every thing that has ever been
founded to God's service far and wide; whereby not only is all money
and wealth of the world drawn and driven to Rome (for this would be the
smallest harm), but the parishes, bishoprics and prelacies are torn to
pieces, deserted, laid waste, and so the people are neglected, God's
Word and God's Name and honor come to naught, and faith is destroyed,
so that at last such institutions and offices fall into the hands not
only of unlearned and unfit men, but the greater part into the hands of
the Romans, the greatest villains in the world. Thus what has been
founded for God's service, for the instruction, government and
improvement of the people, must now serve the stable-boys,
mule-drivers, yea, not to use plainer language, Roman whores and
knaves; yet we have no more thanks than that they mock us for it as
fools.
X. If then such unbearable abuses are all carried on in the Name of God
and St. Peter, just as if God's Name and the spiritual power were
instituted to blaspheme God's honor, to destroy Christendom, body and
soul: we are indeed in duty bound to resist in a proper way as much as
we can. And here we must do like pious children whose parents have
become insane, and first see by what right that which has been founded
for God's service in our lands, or has been ordained to provide for our
children, must be allowed to do its work in Rome, and to lapse here,
where it ought to serve. How can we be so foolish?