Luther: Parents should be dissuaded from counselling their children to adopt the religious state, as they were surely making an offering of them to the devil.

Here's  a Luther tidbit from the Catholic Answers Discussion Forums:

“Parents should be dissuaded from counselling their children to adopt the religious state, as they were surely making an offering of them to the devil.” - Martin Luther (Wittemb. V, 124)

This quote appeared in the discussion, Did Martin Luther allow divorce? The person who posted it didn't explain how exactly it was relevant to the topic of discussion: divorce. It was posted along with a number of other shock quotes, all I suspect have the goal of preaching the evils of Martin Luther to the choir.  This same person who posted this quote commented elsewhere, "How is quoting Luther’s filthy works verbatim, ‘bashing him’?! Can we not expose his works to stir the hearts of those who ignorantly follow his theology, to reconcile them back to the Church Christ founded?" And also, "We aren’t attacking the person of Martin Luther. We are merely exposing his works for what they are. Wouldn’t you want to know if your denominational founder’s works were vile and lewd? Or, would you want to remain in the naive comfort of not knowing?" This is the mindset of this particular defender of Rome: it's not an attack to present out-of-context quotes devoid of either an historical or actual context!

It appears the point of posting this quote was to show Luther's evil of telling parents not to allow their children to become monks or nuns. Perhaps in a Roman Catholic worldview, such is the case, but not in Luther's. We'll see this quote has the typical spurious pedigree that so plagues Roman Catholic produced Luther propaganda.


Documentation
While the person who posted this quote did provide a reference, it's far more probable the quote was taken from a secondary source: Patrick O'Hare's, The Facts About Luther. Notice the obvious similarities to what was posted on the Catholic Answers forum:

Christ, speaking of virginity, not by way of command, but by way of counsel, said, "he that can take it let him take it" and that His grace will be all-sufficient to overcome the infirmity of nature. Luther in unbounded blasphemy contradicts this Divine utterance. He will no longer acknowledge such preaching. He, the doctor of doctors, considers it all folly and declares most emphatically that "it is impossible for any one to live single and be continent." To his distorted mind the vow of chastity was an "impossible vow," "an abomination" and "worse than adultery." In his desire to abolish and get rid of it, he is not ashamed to appeal "to priests, monks and nuns, who find themselves capable of generation," to violate their sworn promises and abandon their freely chosen state of celibacy. Unless they follow his advice, he considers nothing remains for them but "to pass their days in inevitable self-gratification." "Parents," he said, "should be dissuaded from counselling their children to adopt the religious state as they were surely making an offering of them to the devil." (Wittenb. V, 124.)

I've gone through O'Hare's book for a number of years now. I've grown more and more convinced he did very little of his own research into Luther's writings. He appears to have simply done the equivalent of a cut-and-paste with his favorite hostile Roman Catholic secondary sources, and in some instances, blatantly plagiarized those sources.  I suspect he lifted this quote from Luther: An Historical Portrait By J. Verres. Notice the similarities with the words in bold text:

The conclusions, which Luther draws from his axiom, are (1) the assertion that the vow of chastity is an abomination, and (2) an appeal to the religious, to enter matrimony. "If priests, monks and nuns find themselves fit for generation, they must abandon their vows; if they do not, nothing remains for them, but inevitable impurity and fornication." Hence those parents, who advise their children to enter the religious state, offer them to the devil" (Satanae hoc modo tilios suos dicantes. Wittenb. V. 124). The vow of chastity is an impossible vow:...

If the words in bold text are not enough convincing proof, look at the way Father O'Hare simply rewrote two Luther quotes used by Verras in this paragraph:

Verres stated,

If priests, monks and nuns find themselves fit for generation, they must abandon their vows; if they do not, nothing remains for them, but inevitable impurity and fornication.

O'Hare rewrote this as:

In his desire to abolish and get rid of it, he is not ashamed to appeal "to priests, monks and nuns, who find themselves capable of generation," to violate their sworn promises and abandon their freely chosen state of celibacy. Unless they follow his advice, he considers nothing remains for them but "to pass their days in inevitable self-gratification." 

Verres stated,

Hence those parents, who advise their children to enter the religious state, offer them to the devil" (Satanae hoc modo tilios suos dicantes. Wittenb. V. 124).

O'Hare rewrote this as:

"Parents," he said, "should be dissuaded from counselling their children to adopt the religious state as they were surely making an offering of them to the devil." (Wittenb. V, 124.)

In the later quote, notice the reference is the same. I've yet to come across any other English sources using "Wittenb. V. 124." Verres preceded O'Hare, and O'Hare quotes him elsewhere in his book. As to this reference, "Wittenb.," it refers to the Wittenberg edition of Luther's Works. This edition was the first attempt at collecting Luther's writings into a multi-volume set. When O'Hare and Verres refer to "Wittenb." they are referring to the Latin volumes, not the German volumes. Here is the Latin text from "Wittenb. V, 124:

This snippet is from Matrimonio, Sermo habitus Wittembergae (1522), otherwise known as Uom Eelichen Leben, in English rendered as The Estate of Marriage. This treatise has been translated into English. The quote can be found in LW 45:36.


Context

What we would speak most of is the fact that the estate of marriage has universally fallen into such awful disrepute. There are many pagan books which treat of nothing but the depravity of womankind and the unhappiness of the estate of marriage, such that some have thought that even if Wisdom itself were a woman one should not marry. A Roman official was once supposed to encourage young men to take wives (because the country was in need of a large population on account of its incessant wars). Among other things he said to them, “My dear young men, if we could only live without women we would be spared a great deal of annoyance; but since we cannot do without them, take to yourselves wives,” etc. He was criticized by some on the ground that his words were ill-considered and would only serve to discourage the young men. Others, on the contrary, said that because Metellus was a brave man he had spoken rightly, for an honorable man should speak the truth without fear or hypocrisy.

So they concluded that woman is a necessary evil, and that no household can be without such an evil. These are the words of blind heathen, who are ignorant of the fact that man and woman are God’s creation. They blaspheme his work, as if man and woman just came into being spontaneously! I imagine that if women were to write books they would say exactly the same thing about men. What they have failed to set down in writing, however, they express with their grumbling and complaining whenever they get together.

Every day one encounters parents who forget their former misery because, like the mouse, they have now had their fill. They deter their children from marriage but entice them into priesthood and nunnery, citing the trials and troubles of married life. Thus do they bring their own children home to the devil, as we daily observe; they provide them with ease for the body and hell for the soul (LW 45:36).

Conclusion
In this section of Luther's treatise he discusses those who see marriage as negative. The quote in question is in regard to certain parents who deter their children from getting married because of "the trials and troubles of married life." Notice this nuance was left out of Father O'Hare's version of the quote.

In the same treatise Luther does mention some people that may chose not to marry: those "eunuchs who have been so from birth,"those who "have been made eunuchs by men," and finally, the rare person given the gift of chastity. Luther describes the attitude of this later group:

“I could marry if I wish, I am capable of it. But it does not attract me. I would rather work on the kingdom of heaven, i.e., the gospel, and beget spiritual children.” Such persons are rare, not one in a thousand, for they are a special miracle of God. No one should venture on such a life unless he be especially called by God, like Jeremiah [16:2], or unless he finds God’s grace to be so powerful within him that the divine injunction, “Be fruitful and multiply,” has no place in him (LW 45:21).

This is one of the reasons Luther exhorted parents not to force their children into monastic vows. The majority of people are born with the desire to fulfill God's creation mandate: be fruitful and multiply.  Of course, Luther further says sending children into a religious institution may provide for their bodies, but it was also preparing the soul for hell. Luther says,

No vow of any youth or maiden is valid before God, except that of a person in one of the three categories which God alone has himself excepted. Therefore, priests, monks, and nuns are duty-bound to forsake their vows whenever they find that God’s ordinance to produce seed and to multiply is powerful and strong within them. They have no power by any authority, law, command, or vow to hinder this which God has created within them. If they do hinder it, however, you may be sure that they will not remain pure but inevitably besmirch themselves with secret sins or fornication. For they are simply incapable of resisting the word and ordinance of God within them. Matters will take their course as God has ordained (LW 45:19).

Perhaps the reason such sentiment was offensive to Patrick O'Hare is because he was a popular Roman Catholic priest.