1 Here it is to be noted that no one should ever place his trust and confidence in the Mother of God or her merit, for such confidence is due to God alone, as the only high service of God: but that through her and through the grace given to her, one should praise and thank God, and not praise and love her otherwise than as she who has obtained such goods from God by pure grace, without merit, as she herself confesses in the Magnificat.
2. just as when I, looking at the sky, the sun and all creatures, move myself to praise the Creator of them, and include them in my prayer and praise, saying: O God, who has created such beautiful and fine creatures, give me a right knowledge and a strong and firm faith etc. So also here the prayer should mix in the Mother of God and say: Oh God, what a noble person you have created here, blessed be she etc. And you who honored her so highly, give me also this or that etc. What you now ask of God, that the heart may not rest on her, but through her' penetrate to Christ and God Himself. Therefore, the Hail Mary also says that God gives and speaks all things:
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus Christ, amen.
(3) You see that there is no prayer in this, but only praise and honor. Just as in the first words of the Lord's Prayer there is no prayer, but praise and honor to God, that he is our Father and in heaven. Therefore, we cannot make a prayer or an invocation out of the Hail Mary, for it does not befit us to interpret the words further than they are and the Holy Spirit has set them; but we may act them in two ways: first, as a contemplation, that we may tell in it the grace that God has given it; second, that we may add a wish that it may be recognized and considered by everyone.
4. first, it is full of grace, so that it may be known without all sin. This is a
great thing; for God's grace makes her full of all good and void of all evil. Secondly, God is with her, that is, all her doings are divine and are done in her by God; in addition, He protects her and preserves her from everything that may be harmful to her. In the third place, she is blessed above all women, not only because she gave birth without pain and suffering and without injury, above Eve and all other women, but also because she became fruitful and conceived without all sin, from the Holy Spirit, a bodily fruit, which is not given to any woman. In the fourth place, that her fruit is given, namely, containing the corruption that passes over all the children of Eve, that they are conceived in sins, born guilty of death and damnation; but this fruit of her womb alone is given, and we are all given through it.
(5) Secondly, a prayer or wish is to be added here, that one should pray for all those who maledict this fruit and mother. But who is maledicting this fruit? All who persecute and malign his word, the gospel, and the faith, as the Jews and papists are doing now. It follows, then, that now no one so nearly maligns this mother and her fruit as those who adore her with many rosaries and always have the Hail Mary in their mouths, for they are the ones who most malign Christ's word and faith.
6 Therefore, look at it, this mother and her fruit are given in two ways, physically and spiritually. Physically, with the mouth and with the words of the Hail Mary, which are her worst blasphemers and maledictions. Spiritually, with the heart, to praise and praise their child, Christ, in all his words, works and sufferings. No one does this except the one who has true Christian faith, for without such faith no heart is good, but is naturally full of cursing and blasphemy against God and all His saints. Therefore, whoever does not believe is advised to leave the Hail Mary and all prayers unanswered; for it is written of such: Oratio ejus fiat in peccatum: "Let his prayer become sin," Ps. 109:7; from this may God protect us.