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 commands us to imitate, are undoubtedly obligatory.  Such are the moral examples of God, Christ, apostles, prophets, saints, and churches, recorded in Scripture, with command to follow them, Eph. iv. 32, and v. 1, 2; 1 John ii. 6; 1 Cor. xi. 1; Phil. iv. 6; Heb. vi. 12, and xiii. 7; James v. 10; 3 John 11.

2.  Those examples in Scripture, which the Spirit of Christ commends and praises, are obligatory; his commendings are virtual commandings; and we ought to follow whatsoever is praiseworthy, especially in God’s account, Phil. iv. 8, 9; 2 Cor. x. 18.  Now the Spirit of Christ commends many examples to us:  as, Enoch’s walking with God, Gen. v. 24; Noah’s uprightness, Gen. vi.; Abraham’s faith, Rom. iv., and obedience, Gen. xxii.; Lot’s zeal against Sodom’s sins, 2 Pet. ii. 9; Job’s patience, James v. 10, 11.  And in a word, all the examples of the saints, which the Lord approves and speaks well of; as Heb. xi.; 1 Pet. iii. 5, 6:  together with all such examples, whose imitation by others is commended in Scripture; as, 1 Thess. i. 6, 7, and ii. 14.

3.  Those examples in Scripture are obligatory, whose ground, reason, scope, or end, are obligatory, and of a moral nature, and as much concern one Christian as another, one church as another, one time as another, &c., whether they be the examples under the Old or New Testament.  Thus the example of the church of Corinth, in excommunicating the incestuous person, because he was a wicked person—­and lest he should leaven the whole lump; and that they might keep the evangelical passover sincerely, and for that they had power to judge them within; and that his “flesh might be destroyed, and his spirit saved in the day of the Lord Jesus,” 1 Cor. v. 5-8, 11-13:  which grounds and ends being moral, oblige us to use the like remedy against all wicked and scandalous persons.

4.  Those acts which are propounded in Scripture as patterns or examples, that we should act the like good, or avoid the like ill, are an obligatory law to us.  There is an example of caution, and an example of imitation.