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Tauffder Glaubigen,’ A.D. 1525, page 5, says: ‘Tauffen im wasser ist dem
bekennenden verjeher seiner sunden auss dem Gotlichen beneleh mit
eusserlichem wasser ubergiessen und den in die zal der sundern auss eygner
erkantuss und bewilligung einschreiben.’ Translation: ‘To baptize in water is
to cover the confessor of his sins in external water, according to the divine
command, and to inscribe him in the number of the separate upon his own
confession and desire. I have translated ubegiessen to cover, we cannot
translate here ‘to pour the confessor’ … with external water, for which
signification see Sanders’ Lexicon under, ‘giessen.’ f474
“The fact that a baptistry was built at St. Gall, and that John Stumpf, a
Lutheran pastor, who lived in Zurich from 1522 to 1544, and who wrote of
them from personal knowledge of their practices, says they ‘rebaptized in
rivers and streams’ is good evidence that they immersed.” f475
Then Sicher, a Roman Catholic, gives the account of their baptisms at St. Gall:
“The number of the converted increased so that the baptistry could not hold
the crowd and they were compelled to use the streams and the Sitter river.”
f476
Simler says that: “Many came to St. Gall, inquired for the Tauffhaus
(Baptistry) and were baptized.” f476
Dr. Rule, who speaks contemptuously of them, says that they took their
converts “and plunged them in the nearest streams.” f477
Mosheim says the Socinians, in their Catechism of 1574, say: “Baptismus est
hominis Evangelio credentis et penitentiam agentis in nomine Paris et Filii, et
Spiritus Sancti, vel in nomine Jesu Christi in aquam immersio et emersio” f478
— Baptism is an immersion and the emmersion of a man who believes and is
truly penitent, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
or in the name of Jesus Christ, in water. The Socinians were surrounded and
mingled with the Baptists. How absurd, then, even with only this to the
contrary, to take the position that “exclusive immersion began among the
Baptists in the seventeenth century,” because, “until the seventeenth century
— and that near its middle — exclusive immersion had been abandoned.”
Replying to the statement that “the only instance in which immersion among
the Anabaptists occurred during the sixteenth century, is the immersion of
Wolfang Uliman, at Schaffhausen, in 1525,” H.S. Burrage, D.D., says:
“Well, let us see. In the ‘Bekenntniss von beiden Sacramenten’ which at
Munster, Oct. 22, 1533, was subscribed by Rothman, Klopriss, Staprade,
Vienne, and Stralen, and was made public on the eighth of November
following, occurs this statement: ‘Baptism is an immersion (eintauchung) in
water, which the candidate requests and receives as a true sign that, dead to