Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

From this conception of baptism followed as a further consequence the
rebaptism of those converts who wished to unite with the new church.
Hence the name Anabaptists or Rebaptizers (Wiedertäufer), which
originated with the Pedobaptists, but which they themselves rejected,
because they knew no other kind of baptism except that of converts.
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The demand of rebaptism virtually unbaptized and unchristianized the
entire Christian world, and completed the rupture with the historic Church.
It cut the last cord of union of the present with the past.
The first case was the rebaptism of Blaurock by Grebel in February, 1525,
soon after the disputation with Zwingli. At a private religious meeting,
Blaurock asked Grebel to give him the true Christian baptism on
confession of his faith, fell on his knees and was baptized. Then he baptized
all others who were present, and partook with them of the Lord’s Supper,
or, as they called it, the breaking of bread. f130 Reubli introduced rebaptism
in Waldshut at Easter, 1525, convinced Hübmaier of its necessity, and
rebaptized him with about sixty persons. Hübmaier himself rebaptized
about three hundred. f131
Baptism was not bound to any particular form or time or place or person;
any one could administer the ordinance upon penitent believers who
desired it. It was first done mostly in houses, by sprinkling or pouring,
occasionally by partial or total immersion in rivers. f132
The mode of baptism was no point of dispute between Anabaptists and
Pedobaptists in the sixteenth century. The Roman Church provides for
immersion and pouring as equally valid. Luther preferred immersion, and
prescribed it in his baptismal service. f133 In England immersion was the
normal mode down to the middle of the seventeenth century. f134 It was
adopted by the English and American Baptists as the only mode; while the
early Anabaptists, on the other hand, baptized by sprinkling and pouring as
well. We learn this from the reports in the suits against them at Zurich.
Blaurock baptized by sprinkling, f135 Manz by pouring. f136 The first clear
case of immersion among the Swiss Anabaptists is that of Wolfgang
Uliman (an ex-monk of Coire, and for a while assistant of Kessler in St.
Gall). He was converted by Grebel on a journey to Schaffhausen, and, not
satisfied with being “sprinkled merely out of a dish,” was “drawn under and
covered over in the Rhine.” f137 On Palm Sunday, April 9, 1525, Grebel
baptized a large number in the Sitter, a river a few miles from St. Gall,
which descends from the Säntis and flows into the Thur, and is deep