The Preachers: "You must understand that our unbelief cannot make the ordinance of God unavailing. Say now, for what end was the sun created?"
The King: "Scripture teaches that it was made to rule the day and to shine."
The Preachers: "Now if we or you were blind, would the sun fail to execute its office for which it was created?"
The King: "I know well that my blindness or yours would not make the sun fail to shine."
The Preachers: "So is it with all the works and ordinances of God, especially with the Sacraments. When I am baptised it is well if faith be there; but if it be not, baptism does not for all that fail to be a precious, noble, and holy Sacrament, yes, what St. Paul calls it, a regeneration and renewal of the Holy Ghost, because it is ordered by God's word and given His promise. So also with respect to the Lord's Supper; if those who partake shall have faith to grasp the promise of Christ, as it is written, Oportet accedentem credere, but none the less does God's word, ordinance, and command remain, even if my faith never more turned thereto. But of this we have said enough."[278]
The preachers next catechised John of Leyden on his heresy concerning the Incarnation. He did not deny that Jesus Christ was born of Mary, but he denied that He derived from her His flesh and blood, as he considered that Mary being sinful, out of sinful flesh sinful offspring must issue.
The catechising on the subject of marriage follows.
The Preachers: "How have you regarded marriage, and what is your belief thereupon?"
The King: "We have ever held marriage to be God's work and ordinance, and we hold this now, that no higher or better estate exists in the world than the estate of matrimony."
The Preachers: "Why have you so wildly treated this same estate, against God's word and common order, and taken one wife after another? How can you justify such a proceeding?"