(Held on the evening of July 2, 1539.)
Text: "And Mary said, My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid. Behold, from henceforth all my children's children shall call me blessed. For he hath done great things for me, who is mighty, and whose name is holy; and his mercy endureth for ever unto them that fear him. He wieldeth violence with his arm, and scattereth them that hope in him.
the mind of the heart. He pushes the mighty from their seats and lifts up the lowly. He feeds the hungry and leaves the rich empty. He remembereth mercy, and helpeth his servant Israel, as he spake unto our fathers, unto Abraham, and unto his seed for ever.
Because we are celebrating the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on which the beautiful hymn of praise sung by the Blessed Virgin Mary has fallen, because she was given to her by her mother Elizabeth.
When a woman is conceived and says, "How is it that the mother of my Lord comes to me?" and is praised above all women, she might hope that she alone would be a blessed mother and that the fruit of her womb would be blessed. There is a sincere great hope that she will thus be praised above all other wives and children, and this praise comes from the revelation of the Holy Spirit. She was not a month pregnant, and yet Elizabeth sees that Mary is a mother. This did not happen naturally, but was a miracle.
But this is also a miracle that the Virgin Mary does not become proud of it, nor does she exalt herself above all other women and fruits of the womb that are born of women, especially because it is not a fiction, but the truth, and Elizabeth confesses it and John also in the womb, and she cannot deny that she is a woman, the like of which does not exist in the whole world, and her fruit of the womb is such a child, whereas all other children of women are nothing. She cannot deny this. For the Holy Spirit does not lie, who says this through the mouth of Elizabeth, who is full of the Holy Spirit. She sings a hymn of praise, for the Holy Spirit has praised her above all women, and has also praised her fruit. Then she sings praise and thanks to God again, she sings the Magnificat. 1) This is her song, which she sings again, also from the Holy Spirit, at the word of Elizabeth, who says: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed are you who have believed. These two persons alone have spoken one to another here; but what they have spoken has resounded throughout the whole world. It is too much that they spoke such words, such two women, when Mary was only fifteen years old. At that time, nature was better and more beautiful, especially before the flood, when a man grew in strength and wisdom in ten years, as he cannot do now in twenty or thirty years. Therefore it is not out of human reason sung this song.
1) This is how the Latin translation of the hymn begins. After that, it is called "Magnificat" for short. (Buchwald.)
of Mary. Therefore, this little song is sung as a miraculous song, which the Holy Spirit has formed through the mouth of this little girl, and is a song that is called a thanksgiving. She does not become proud and hopeful over the gifts, which are not sung to her by any poor woman, but by the mouth of the Holy Spirit. 2) It is not a frivolous praise, as of other people, as we praise one another, and when we are praised, we become proud of it, if it is already a lie, and the one who praises us is equally fooling and mimicking. But this is a strange virtue in the female image. It is a song that few sing, especially as she sings it. I am also the fruit of a woman, but I am not like the fruit of this child, so she is also another woman's image. And yet we owe it to this example of Mary to be thankful. For this is a wonderful virtue, just as ingratitude is a shameful vice.
One reads about pagans, as the Nabataeans, 3) those of the Ishmael origin, who were so strict rulers that they punished ingratitude with death, and yet they are not of the house of Abraham, but of the Ishmael origin. If the children were unthankful and disobedient to their parents, and the servants to their masters, they were put to death immediately. Such a regime is not found anywhere else. We also have laws, but the shameful ingratitude, the unpleasant vice, remains unpunished. That is where the saying comes from: Bread is lost on strange children and dogs. With the people [the Nabataeans] nothing was lost, because ingratitude cost the neck. There must have been great reason in this people, which kept itself so sharp in the worldly regiment. Item, hatred and envy also remain unpunished. Therefore, our rulers and lawyers may not boast highly. For nothing is punished except public death, robbery, theft. Children's disobedience is punished in such a way that parents now cry foul over the children. But where there are pious, godly authorities, they punish blasphemy and abominations.
2) "werden" is used by us instead of "will" in Buchwald. 3) Cf. Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XII, 938, ยง 7.
godliness. In the secular regime, much is done against the first tablet, such as: Thou shalt not worship strange gods, nor use God's name in vain. There the antagonism really happens. Moses says, "If a parent has a disobedient child, he must bring him before the authorities. Theft is not punished so severely. Therefore our thing is not like that of the ancients. If it were not for the Scriptures, we would not understand that ingratitude is a sin. Gratitude is so strange that one immediately becomes happy when he finds a grateful person. If people are punished for ingratitude, we are mocked for it. The worldly regime does not punish, and yet the sins are not so small. Nevertheless, when they punish, they mock us for it. What will become of it in the end, I do not know. The devil will become Abbot.
Now I am talking about the ingratitude against the other table, which was also punished with death by the Nabataeans. What should happen in the first table, when we should be thankful to God and sing a Magnificat to Him and say "Fie on you"? On the other side they persecute the word and not only say "Fie on you", but condemn it for heresy. Here, too, they spout it [in the highest contempt. Peasants and citizens are so disgusted that one should not tell them the truth. Shouldn't the pestilence rain and snow, and the Turk come? We are guilty of being grateful to God, and yet we do the opposite. The nobility in the countryside is taking everything to themselves, the mayors in the cities want to be celebrated by the priests, too. Now God sends His Son to be a redeemer of the world: yet they do not want to hear the gospel, Yes, they say, I want to hear the gospel, but not the preacher's blasphemy.
So now we have ingratitude against the first and the other table. Truly, we would all be worthy of death. Ingratitude is a heavy, annoying vice, and makes people unwilling, so that no one wants to do good anymore. But we want to decorate the pile with may and give the devil a new year's greeting.
1) Here we have deleted "an".
But we have told them beforehand, and they do not pretend that no one has warned them.
This is how the Magnificat approaches us, so that we may call gratitude the most beautiful virtue of all. One should bend towards the tree, since one has shade from it, not only in the other table, but also in the first table, so that we are grateful to God and man. In this way you will win the hearts of all those to whom you are grateful. If you are a Christian, you owe it and you will do it. If you do the opposite, you close the hearts of those against whom you are ungrateful. But if thou art grateful, thou shalt open thy heart, and thou shalt open thy hand, thy purse, and thy casket. And although the world does not punish ingratitude, God and men let you go. But if you are a Christian, you let your sun shine. But with your ingratitude you close your neighbor's heart, hand and pocket and are taken for a desperate boy. But we Christians and preachers have to take our stand with our adversaries, so that we are persecuted there and trampled underfoot here with our own. Therefore, let us make an effort to give thanks to God. For this is the only sacrifice we should offer when we are redeemed.
In the Old Testament there was a finer discipline. If a farmer cut his blessing, he had to harvest a basket full of spikenard before he cut it and bring it to the Levite or priest with such words as Moses describes: "Here I bring" 2c., and had to give primitias, firstling, at all times. When the grain would be ripe, he had to bring a sheaf or two sheaves and offer them before he needed them; he had to say, "I bring this, not to give thanks, but to give thanks to God, who brought me out of Egypt and gave me the field, the house and the farm. That was a fine way. Then they also gave the interest from it as the tithe, also the tenth church oak, not only in gratitude, but also so that the preachers would be maintained from it.
This fine order is now dead, which was in this people. We have not this commandment, that we give to the priests the first
and tenth apple. But this is not abolished, that one should give thanks to God and from what one has serve one's neighbor and servants of God, not that one thereby earns forgiveness of sins, as was thought under the papacy, but rather say: I give to the common treasury, hospitals, the poor priests, that it may be a thanksgiving and thank-offering, not a merit-offering, so that I confess that I have received this or that from him, just as everyone must confess that he has body, life, house and farm, butter, cheese and everything from God. Therefore, you should give to your neighbor who is in need of your help and do good to him, so that you may show your gratitude. Now this vice is not punished as in the Old Testament. When they would not give the first bushel and the tenth, the surrounding kings came and took it away with heaps, and they were not wronged. So also today is such a scraping and scratching and collecting all thalers. There is no sacrifice of praise or thanksgiving. Therefore, our Lord God must send a pestilence or have Junker Landsknecht and Brother Veit come to search for the thalers that have now been buried. This is then God's rightful judgment. For you want to serve the lansquenet, who then puts a spear to your neck, and you then come trembling to him and carry the thalers to him. For the will to courage, which we all do, cannot stand thus. And if there is a God, then either the mercenaries must take the thalers from you, or else they must be stolen from you, or you must die. For God wants you to be grateful and not to value people in this way. You now keep back much that you would otherwise have given to monks and priests. Therefore you have no reason to be so stingy. In times past, when you were made whores of women and virgins, and deceived with masses, monks and priests were honored. Now that the truth is preached, priests are despised and persecuted. If this goes unpunished, God is not God. You are collecting thalers from your worst enemies, who will steal your wife, children, property and honor, and you will be trampled underfoot by them.
So we are not alone to our dear God
ungrateful for body and soul, but also for his word. For we give nothing to the preachers. This great ingratitude will knock the bottom out of the barrel. If you want to be Christians, listen to the words of St. Paul, who says (1 Thess. 5:18): "Be thankful," not only for the bodily gifts, as in the other table, but also for the spiritual ones, and sing a Magnificat with the dear Virgin, and if you do not want to do it, let others do it, give the firstfruits and the tenth apple. God does not need it, but your poor neighbor and the poor people, and do the work as a work of gratitude and say: O you dear, merciful Father in heaven, you have given me not only bodily goods, but also your dear Son, as a sign I will give my little apple. This pleases God well, and the benefit is useful to man. They reversed the same beautiful sacrifice of thanksgiving. When they gave the first and tenth apple, they decorated it and put a wreath on it. This was a cow dung- turning a sacrifice of praise into a sacrifice of service. God said to give to widows and the poor, and if they did, he would count it as given to himself. This was the order. If you give it to the poor disciples, you give it to God. For inasmuch as ye do it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me. (Matth. 25, 40.) But when one hears that one should give to poor people, schools, then one says: "One does not deserve thanks. But if someone gives five pennies for a letter of indulgence, that was a delicious thing. So the pope also taught us. Then kings gave castles, land and people for it. For they wanted to earn the kingdom of heaven with it.
So the world is mad and foolish. So the Jews knew that God had ordained it for a sacrifice of praise, and that it should be called given to Himself, not that it should be bought with it, but that they should know that they had received it from Him, saying, "Behold, I give the apple to the poor, for the field or garden was yours. And if we could bring it there, the priests would be richer than the Anabaptists, who are now also preaching again about great works.
bushels of thalers fell. But if they preached as we do, namely: God gives you everything, give him another apple! not that he needs it, but the poor widows, who should not deserve it. This does not come to pass, but it pleases well: If you give this for a measurement, you have forgiveness of sins - so then go the apples and whole gardens. God wants us to thank Him from the heart for all the good deeds we do, and to recognize the great work that God gave His Son for us. I cannot give thanks for an eye. If I were to give a man's body, it would be nothing; but if necessity required it, I would let him have it, not that I would gain anything by it, but that I would testify that we were redeemed by the blood of Christ. So Christians sacrifice not only apples and pears, but also the stocking, 1) neck, in prison, gallows, sword, and this they sacrifice not as a sacrifice of merit, so that one wants to earn the kingdom of heaven, but that it is done to our Lord God for service, love, honor and thanksgiving. So it is the most glorious work of God, which is done in the name of God, that one dares to risk life and limb on His word and say: "If I can serve my neighbor with money, with my hand or with good words, all this shall be called a thank offering.
Therefore, the Magnificat commands us that if we cannot help our neighbor with our hand, we should at least do it with our mouth. You need not be so rude nor so humble as to say that you have received nothing. Look at your body, your physical and spiritual goods! Are these all your goods that you have given? Therefore be thankful not only with your mouth, but also with your hand, since you, dear God, have need not in heaven, but here on earth, since you, dear God, dwell in poor people.
So let your life be a thanksgiving and a Magnificat. My soul shall praise my Savior with all its strength, as if to say: I have nothing of my own, but God is my Savior and helps me and gives me everything,
1) Stocking hull.
so that I may give thanks to Him with all my heart and strength. God and man want to have gratitude. For even the world does not suffer an ingrate. A Christian bites the dust and remains pious. Ingratitude is small in the outer table, but against God it is great. But when one recognizes God's bodily and spiritual gifts, one learns the Magnificat, so that we will not be counted among those who despise God and His word, and who give thanks to God neither with the mouth nor with the hand. God wants thanks from you, not a sacrifice as a merit. Abel also makes a thank offering. That is what God always wants, and that is why we are all priests, that we should sacrifice. When I preach, I offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to God. So you, when you listen, you also offer sacrifices of thanksgiving. Then you can give thanks to God in your heart and help and advise your neighbor with your hand, mouth and pockets, and God will call you a priest. For you thank Him that through His Son He has redeemed you and enlightened you by the Holy Spirit, and then you serve your neighbor. This is the work of the Church, and so do all Christians. But let the others sacrifice to the devil until they are full and do not sing the Magnificat. The true God does not seek other sacrifices than peace offerings, but the false one seeks sacrifices of merit. A man martyres himself for 30 or 40 years and wants to earn the kingdom of heaven from God. Yes, the hellish fire! One should recognize that he has everything, not only grain, apples, the world and everything, but also his dear son by grace.
Mary did not sing it in such a way that we should not imitate it, but we cannot sing it so high; for truly God has not done such great things to me. For she is the mother of the Son of God. I am not. Nevertheless, he became my Savior and my own on the cross and wants to love me, a poor child. For he has given me body and soul, which I have not earned. And above that, that I would have deserved eternal death and hell, he also gives me his dear Son and the Holy Spirit.