Chapter 3: God's Eternal Decrees

Question 0

Not foresaw…

Answer 0

Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.

Question 1

Ordain

Answer 1

God, from all eternity, did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own free will, freely and in changeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, no is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

Question 2

Life & Death

Answer 2

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto life and others are foreordained to everlasting death.

Question 3

Number

Answer 3

These angels and men, thus predestined and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed and their number certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or decreased.

Question 4

Life–>In Christ–>Free Grace, not works–>for praise & glory

Answer 4

Those of mankind that are predestined unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him there unto; all to the praise of his glorious grace.