f infants to the first initiating sacrament of the Old
Testament, circumcision, because they with their parents' were accounted
within the covenant of grace by God, Gen. xvii., is a rule for us now to
admit infants to the first initiating sacrament of the New Testament,
baptism, because infants are federally holy, and within the covenant
with their believing parents now, as well as then, Rom. xi. 16; 1 Cor.
vii. 14; Col. ii. 11, 12. Thus the baptizing of divers persons formerly,
though into no particular congregation, nor as members of any
particular congregation, as the eunuch, Acts viii.; Lydia, Acts xvi.;
the jailer, Acts xvi.; because it was sufficient they were baptized into
that one general visible body of Christ, 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13, is a rule
for us what to do in like cases upon the same common ground. Thus the
Church's practice of preaching the word, and breaking bread on the first
day of the week, Acts xx. 7, &c., is our rule for sanctifying the Lord's
day, by celebrating the word, sacraments, and other holy ordinances, at
these times. And in like manner, the primitive practices of ordaining
preaching presbyters, by laying on of hands, 1 Tim. iv. 14; 2 Tim. i. 6;
Acts xiii. 3; of governing all the congregations of a city by one common
presbytery, in which respect they are all called by the name of one
church, as the church of Jerusalem, Acts viii. 1, and xv. 4; the church
of Antioch, Acts xiii. 1, and xi. 25, 26; the church of Corinth, 1 Cor.
i. 2, 2 Cor. i. 1; which had churches in it, 1 Cor. xiv. 34. Of healing
common scandals and errors, troubling divers presbyterial churches by
the authoritative decrees of a synod, made up of members from divers
presbyterial churches, as Acts xv., and such like, are our rules in like
particulars, which the Lord hath left for our direction, the same
grounds of such actions reaching us as well as them.

Now this last kind of examples are those which we are, by divers divine
commands, especially enjoined to follow; and therefore such examples
amount to a divine right or institution; and what we ought to do by
virtue of such binding examples is of divine right, and by the will and
appointment of Jesus Christ.

What discriminatory notes or rules may we walk by, for finding out the
obligatory force of scripture examples; and what manner of examples
those be? For discovery hereof, take these ensuing general rules:

1. Those examples in Scripture, which the Spirit of Christ comman