Article III Chapters and Cloisters

[1] Monastic chapters and cloisters were formerly founded with the good intention of educating learned men and virtuous women. They should be used for that again. They could produce pastors, preachers, and other ministers for the churches. They could also produce essential personnel for the secular government in cities and countries, as well as well-educated young women for mothers, housekeepers, and such.

[2] If these institutions will not serve this purpose, it is better to abandon them or tear them down than have their blasphemous, humanly invented services regarded as something better than the ordinary Christian life and the offices and callings ordained by God. This too is contrary to the chief article on the redemption through Jesus Christ. Like all other human inventions, these religious institutions have not been commanded. They are needless and useless. They are also occasions for dangerous ‹annoyances› and empty works [Isaiah 29:20], what the Hebrew prophets call Aven (i.e., pain and labor).