While many of the Anabaptists were perfect quietists, preaching the duty of non-resistance and the wickedness of bearing arms, even in self-defence, others found sanction for quite opposite views in the Scripture, and proclaimed that the godless should be exterminated as the Canaanites had been.

In ethical matters some sects practised the severest code of morals, while others were distinguished by laxity.

By some marriage was forbidden; others wanted all the marriage they could get and advocated polygamy.

The religious meetings were similar to "revivals," frequently of the most hysterical sort.

Claiming that they were mystically united to God, or had direct revelations from him, they rejected the ceremonies and sacraments of historic Christianity, and sometimes substituted for them practices of the most absurd, or most doubtful, character.