Since daily intercourse and mingling with ungodly apostates, in common eating, drinking, buying, selling, and similar unnecessary temporal or worldly transactions, is not only dangerous for the pious, who, thereby, may become contaminated, or be counted as companions of the apostate, but is also hurtful to the apostate himself, since he, through such mingling, may probably harden in sin, and esteem his offense of less consequence, therefore, we understand from the word of God, that--in order to avoid, according to the unction of the Spirit, the dangers of sin, and offenses, and to bring the apostate sinner to shame and repentance--the true members of Christ must withdraw from the daily intercourse and communion with impenitent apostates; must shun them, and have nothing to do with them; and this without respect to persons, as far as they are not bound to the apostate by any command of God; for as one may do anything in the matter of shunning, which is contrary to love, benevolence, Christian propriety and justice, which supreme virtues a Christian is in duty bound to show unto all men, even to his enemies, for which purpose God has given all laws, which may, for no reason, be diminished, much less, broken or transgressed. 1 Cor. 5:5; 2 Tim. 2:21; 2 Thess. 3; Tit. 3; 2 Thess. 3:14; 2 Pet. 1:6; Tit. 2:12; Rom. 13:8; Matt. 5:44; Rom. 13:9,10; 1 Tim. 1:5; Rev. 22:19; Matt. 5:19; James 2:1.
OF THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, AND THE LAST JUDGMENT.
Finally, we believe, that the Son of the living God, the Lord Jesus Christ, our only Prophet, Priest and King, will visibly, as he ascended, descend from heaven, in the clouds, and all the holy angels of God with him, with power and great glory, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, which shall be heard everywhere. Then all men who have lived upon earth, and have died, good and evil, just and unjust, shall rise from the dead, in incorruption, with their own body, in which they have lived; but those who still live on that day, and have not tasted death, shall be changed, in the twinkling of an eye, to incorruption, at the last sound of the last trumpet. Acts 1:11; Rev. 1:7; 2 Thess. 1:7; 1 Thess. 4:16; Matt. 24:50; Zeph. 1:16; Matt. 25:7; 2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 14:11; Jer. 5:29; Acts 24:15; 1 Cor. 15:42; Jer. 26:19; 1 Cor. 15:38,52.
Thus, the whole human family shall be placed before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. For the Lord Jesus Christ shall then, as a shepherd, separate the sheep from the goats. Those who have done good, he shall set on his right hand, but those that have done evil, on the left; and he shall there pronounce the eternal, irrevocable sentence. 2 Cor. 5:10; Matt. 25:32,33,46; Jude 14.
To the true believers, who, through faith, have done works of love and mercy, he shall say: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” These shall be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord, who shall take them away with him into life eternal, in the heavenly glory and splendor, where they shall forever be with the Lord, in the innumerable company of the holy angels, in the society of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the pious, with great, unspeakable joy and gladness. 2 Pet. 1:5; Matt. 25:35; Luke 16:9; 2 Pet. 1:11; 1 Thess. 4:17,14; John 14:3; 17:24; Dan. 12:12; 1 Pet. 1:8,9.