This custom Christ also observed, and commanded that the disobedient in the church should be so regarded, saying: “If he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican.” Matt. 18:17.
This the apostles also practiced in like manner, according to the doctrine of Christ. Read: “I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no not to eat.” 1 Cor. 5:9–11.
Here the holy apostle forbids us to company and eat with apostate brethren or sisters, which he did not mean or command with reference to the unrighteous of this world, but permitted it with them; else we would needs have to go out of the world, seeing the whole world lies in wickedness; hence it must necessarily be understood with reference to daily intercourse and eating, buying and selling, and the like. “A man that is a lunatic, after the first and second admonition, reject.” Titus 3:10; 2 Tim. 4:15; 2 John 10.
“And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed.” 2 Thess. 3:14.
How this withdrawing is to be observed by all believers, with regard to all apostates, walking disorderly, without respect of person, read: “Now, we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.” 2 Thess. 3:6.
Understand this withdrawing according to scriptures. Gal. 2:12; 3 Macc. 2:34, 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 brethren. Read: 2 Thessalonians 3:15; Jas. 5:19; Luke 19:10; 15, the whole chapter.
ARTICLE XXX.
Of the last day and the second coming of Christ from heaven, we confess: That the great God of heaven, who in the beginning created heaven and earth with all visible things out of nothing, also appointed a day and time, which cannot be known by the angels of God in heaven; much less by mortal men, but which shall unexpectedly overtake men, as the snare of the bird, and a thief in the night; at which time the Almighty God will destroy this whole visible, earthly, realm, and burn it with everlasting fire, except those of the human race who shall have done the will of God; these shall abide forever.
In the last great day of the Lord the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who in the presence of the apostles ascended from the earth in a cloud, shall come again from heaven, in the clouds of the sky, but not in the humiliated form of a servant, as in his first coming into the world at Bethlehem. For at this his second coming he shall reveal himself in the clouds as a King of mighty kings, and Lord of lords, with the power and glory of his almighty Father, and all the angels of God with him, and shall thus, with the trump of God, and the voice of the archangel, peal forth an unutterable sound and shout; so that heaven and earth, all the mountains and islands, shall be moved; the sun and moon shall lose their brightness, the stars shall fall from heaven, and all kindreds of the earth shall weep and wail over themselves, for fear and expectation of the things which are to come; and all shall see the Son of man coming, with power and great glory.