decrees of god

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decrees of god - Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary :

  Decrees of God
  "The decrees of God are his eternal, unchangeable, holy, wise,
  and sovereign purpose, comprehending at once all things that
  ever were or will be in their causes, conditions, successions,
  and relations, and determining their certain futurition. The
  several contents of this one eternal purpose are, because of the
  limitation of our faculties, necessarily conceived of by us in
  partial aspects, and in logical relations, and are therefore
  styled Decrees." The decree being the act of an infinite,
  absolute, eternal, unchangeable, and sovereign Person,
  comprehending a plan including all his works of all kinds, great
  and small, from the beginning of creation to an unending
  eternity; ends as well as means, causes as well as effects,
  conditions and instrumentalities as well as the events which
  depend upon them, must be incomprehensible by the finite
  intellect of man. The decrees are eternal (Acts 15:18; Eph. 1:4;
  2 Thess. 2:13), unchangeable (Ps. 33:11; Isa. 46:9), and
  comprehend all things that come to pass (Eph. 1:11; Matt. 10:29,
  30; Eph. 2:10; Acts 2:23; 4:27, 28; Ps. 17:13, 14).
  
    The decrees of God are (1) efficacious, as they respect those
  events he has determined to bring about by his own immediate
  agency; or (2) permissive, as they respect those events he has
  determined that free agents shall be permitted by him to effect.
  
    This doctrine ought to produce in our minds "humility, in view
  of the infinite greatness and sovereignty of God, and of the
  dependence of man; confidence and implicit reliance upon wisdom,
  rightenousness, goodness, and immutability of God's purpose."