It spread rapidly northward, eastward, and westward.

In the course of its victorious career it absorbed into itself all similar tendencies and local groups and movements having like aims to itself.

As was natural under such circumstances, we find many different strains in the developed Anabaptist movement.

The theologian Bullinger wrote a book on the subject, in which he enumerates thirteen distinct sects, as he terms them, in the Anabaptist body.

The general tenets of the organization, as given by Bullinger, may be summarized as follows: They regard themselves as the true Church of Christ well pleasing to God; they believe that by rebaptism a man is received into the Church; they refuse to hold intercourse with other Churches or to recognize their ministers; they say that the preachings of these are different from their works, that no man is the better for their preaching, that their ministers follow not the teaching of Paul, that they take payment from their benefices, but do not work by their hands; that the Sacraments are improperly served, and that every man, who feels the call, has the right to preach; they maintain that the literal text of the Scriptures shall be accepted without comment or the additions of theologians; they protest against the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone; they maintain that true Christian love makes it inconsistent for any Christian to be rich, but that among the Brethren all things should be in common, or, at least, all available for the assistance of needy Brethren and for the common cause; that the attitude of the Christian towards authority should be that of submission and endurance only; that no Christian ought to take office of any kind, or to take part in any form of military service; that secular authority has no concern with religious belief; that the Christian resists no evil and therefore needs no law courts nor should ever make use of their tribunals; that Christians do not kill or punish with imprisonment or the sword, but only with exclusion from the body of believers; that no man should be compelled by force to believe, nor should any be slain on account of his faith; that infant baptism is sinful and that adult baptism is the only Christian baptism--baptism being a sacrament which should be reserved for the elect alone.
Such seem to represent the doctrines forming the common ground of the Anabaptist groups as they existed at the end of the second decade of the fifteenth century.