One of the characteristics of the Anabaptists generally was the importance they attached to discipline and the Ban, or excommunication. This may be seen in the Schleitheim Confession and many of their extant documents. Hübmaier does not differ from the general body in this respect; indeed, he would make this the doctrine of a standing or falling church. Again and again he uses language like this:
"Yea, God lives and himself testifies that I speak the truth: unless brotherly discipline be restored, received and used according to the earnest command of Christ, it is impossible that it can be right and well with Christians on earth. Although we all with all our might cry, write and hear the gospel, yet crying, labour and toil is in vain and unprofitable—even water baptism and the breaking of bread are in vain and to no purpose and without fruit — where brotherly discipline and Christian excommunication do not accompany them."
To this subject he has devoted two entire treatises, but the briefest statement of his views is in his catechism:
"Leonard—What is fraternal discipline?
"John—When one sees his brother sin, he should go to him in love and admonish him fraternally and privately to leave off such sin. If he does leave off, his soul is