Article 29

Of the withdrawing from and avoiding of apostate and separated members we confess: as separation is commanded by God for the reformation of sinners, and for the keeping of the purity of the church, so God has also commanded and willed that, in order to shame him to reformation, the separated person shall be shunned and avoided. This withdrawing proceeds from the separation, and is a fruit and proof of it, and without it separation is vain and accomplishes nothing. So this ordinance of God shall be practiced and maintained, by all believers, toward the separated persons. This withdrawing extends to all spiritual communion, such as the Supper, the evangelical salutation, the kiss of peace, and all that belongs to it. This withdrawing extends likewise to all temporal and bodily things, such as eating, drinking, buying and selling, daily association and conversation, with all that belongs to it.

So believers shall, according to the Word of God, withdraw themselves from the separated in all spiritual, evangelical matters, as well as in all bodily and temporal things. And as in separation no persons may be favored or spared, but must, by common consent, be separated from the true members of the body, so also in withdrawing, which extends to all spiritual and temporal matters, none may be spared or excepted, whether man or woman, parent or child, or whatever the relation may be. For we nowhere read, where God gave His church a general commandment or ordinance, that any member of that church was entirely exempted and excluded from such a commandment. On the contrary, it appears in many places that the whole number, without exception, had to govern themselves according to the one rule set before them by God. So this ordinance of God must be practiced and maintained by all the members of the body of Christ, without respect of persons, in the fear of God, to shame sinners to reformation, until the person punished is again received into the church.

But as all divine ordinances must be tempered with Christian kindness and discretion, these also must have their place in this matter of shunning. So believers must conduct themselves with more discernment and fairness toward separated persons than the scribes and Pharisees did toward the Sabbath. They, as it appears, would rather let people perish than that they should receive help on the Sabbath, thinking that the Sabbath would be broken by it, though they themselves, in such a case, broke the Sabbath for various small matters. But just as the godly followers of the law did not sin, nor break the Sabbath, when on that day they did not do their own works, but only the works which God had commanded them, so believers neither sin nor act contrary to the commandment of shunning, when they do not do their own works, but only the works which God has commanded them concerning separated persons: as, in case of necessity, to care for their bodies with food and other needful things, and for their souls with the Word of God, and also to help them, by virtue of the commandment of God, in case of danger from water, fire and the like. All believers are bound in duty to do these things; and so they must, with great carefulness, seek that which is lost, and lead that which has gone astray back to the right way, reprove and instruct them with the Word of God, where such Christian admonition can take place, according to the example of Christ. But in all human works believers must with all diligence withdraw themselves from the separated persons, until they have reformed and been united again with the church.

In order to understand this matter rightly, it must be considered that the people of Israel in the time of Christ were under the power and rule of the Romans, and could not punish transgressors according to the law of Moses. So they separated from their communion and avoided those who departed from the law of the fathers, and went over to the Gentiles, the Samaritans, or open sinners. About this, read: they regarded them as unclean, abhorred them, compared them to heathens and enemies, avoided all dealings and association with them, and hindered them in their business. Third Maccabees 2, verse 34. Read also: John 18, verse 31; John 4, verse 9; Acts 10, verse 28; Acts 11; Galatians 2, verse 12.

This custom Christ also kept, and He commanded that the disobedient in the church should be regarded in the same way, saying: "If he neglects to hear the church, let him be to you as a heathen man and a publican." Matthew 18, verse 17.

The apostles also practiced this in the same way, according to the doctrine of Christ. Read: "I wrote to you in an epistle not to keep company with fornicators; yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then you would have to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company, if any man who is called a brother is a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one not even to eat." First Corinthians 5, verses 9 to 11.

Here the holy apostle forbids us to keep company and eat with apostate brothers or sisters. He did not mean or command this with reference to the unrighteous of this world, but permitted it with them; otherwise we would have to go out of the world, since the whole world lies in wickedness. So it must necessarily be understood with reference to daily association and eating, buying and selling, and the like. "A man who is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject." Titus 3, verse 10; Second Timothy 4, verse 15; Second John, verse 10.

"And if any man does not obey our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, so that he may be ashamed." Second Thessalonians 3, verse 14.

How this withdrawing is to be observed by all believers, toward all apostates who walk disorderly, without respect of person, read: "Now we command you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received from us." Second Thessalonians 3, verse 6.

Understand this withdrawing according to the Scriptures. Galatians 2, verse 12; Third Maccabees 2, verse 34, and the like, according to the spirit of the Gospel of Christ.

How believers must seek the lost, and not count the separated as enemies, but admonish them as brothers and sisters. Read: Second Thessalonians 3, verse 15; James 5, verse 19; Luke 19, verse 10; Luke 15, the whole chapter.