Q-7: What Are the Decrees of God?
A: The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he has foreordained whatsoever shall come to pass.
I have already spoken something concerning the decrees of God under the attribute of his immutability. God is unchangeable in his essence, and he-is unchangeable in his decrees; his counsel shall stand. He decrees the issue of all things, and carries them on to their accomplishment by his providence; I shall proceed therefore to the execution of his decrees.
Q-9: The next question is, WHAT 1S THE WORK OF CREATION?
A: It is God’s making all things from nothing by the word of his power. Gen 1:1. ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’
The creation is glorious to behold, and it is a pleasant and profitable study. Some think that when Isaac went abroad into the fields to meditate, it was in the book of the creatures. The creation is the heathen man’s Bible, the ploughman’s primer, and the traveller’s perspective glass, through which he receives a representation of the infinite excellencies which are in God. The creation is a large volume, in which God’s works are bound up; and this volume has three great leaves in it, heaven, earth, and sea.
The author of the creation is God, as it is in the text, ‘God created.’ The world was created in time, and could not be from eternity, as Aristotle thought. The world must have a maker, and could not make itself. If one should go into a far country, and see stately edifices, he would never imagine that they could build themselves, but that there had been some artificer to raise such goodly structures; so this great fabric of the world could not create itself, it must have some builder or maker, and that is God. ‘In the beginning God created.’ To imagine that the work of the creation was not framed by the Lord Jehovah, is as if we should conceive a curious landscape to be drawn without the hand of an artist. ‘God that made the world and all things therein.’ Acts 17:24.
In the work of creation there are two things to be considered: 1: The making. 2: The adorning.
I. The making of the world. Here consider, [1] God made the world without any pre-existent matter. This is the difference between generation and creation. In generation there is materia habilis et disposita [suitable material at hand], some matter to work upon; but in creation there is no pre-existent matter. God brought all this glorious fabric of the world out of the womb of nothing. Our beginning was of nothing. Some brag of their birth and ancestry; but how little cause have they to boast who came from nothing.
[2] God made the world with a word. When Solomon had to build a temple he needed many workmen, and they all had tools to work with, but God wrought without tools. ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made.’ Psa 33:6. The disciples wondered that Christ could with a word calm the sea; but it was more with a word to make the sea.
[3] God made all things at first very good, Gen 1:31I, without any defect or deformity. The creation came out of God’s hands a curious piece; it was a fair copy, without any blot, written with God’s own fingers. Psa 8:3. His work was perfect.
II. The adorning of the world. God made this great lump and mass, Rudis indigestaque moles [with neither shape nor order], and then beautified it. He divided the sea and the earth, he decked the earth with flowers, the trees with fruit; but what is beauty when it is masked over? Therefore, that we might behold this glory, God made the light. The heavens were bespangled with the sun, moon, and stars, that so the world’s beauty might be beheld and admired. God, in the creation, began with things less noble and excellent, rocks and vegetables; and then the rational creatures, angels and men. Man is the most exquisite piece in the creation. He is a microcosm, or little world. Man was made with deliberation and counsel. ‘Let us make man.’ Gen 1:26. It is the manner of artificers to be more than ordinarily accurate when they are about their masterpieces. Man was to be the masterpiece of this visible world, therefore God consulted about making so rare a piece. A solemn council of the sacred persons in the Trinity was called. ‘Let us make man, and let us make him in our own image.’ On the king’s coin his own image or effigy is stamped; so God stamped his image on man, and made him partaker of many divine qualities.
I shall speak, [1] Of the parts of man’s body. (1.) The head, the most excellent architectural part, is the fountain of spirits, and the seat of reason. In nature the head is the best piece, but in grace the heart excels. (2.) The eye is the beauty of the face; it shines and sparkles like a lesser sun in the body. The eye occasions much sin, and therefore may well have tears in it. (3.) The ear is the conduit-pipe through which knowledge is conveyed. Better lose our seeing than our hearing, for ‘faith cometh by hearing.’ Rom 10:17. To have an ear open to God is the best jewel on the ear. (4.) The tongue. David calls the tongue his glory, Psa 16:6, because it is an instrument to set forth the glory of God. The soul at first was a viol in tune to praise God, and the tongue made the music. God has given us two ears, but one tongue, to show that we should be swift to hear, but slow to speak. God has set a double fence before the tongue, the teeth, and the lips, to teach us to be wary that we offend not with our tongue. (5.) The heart is a noble part, and the seat of life.