The decrees of God are His eternal, wise, free, and holy purpose, whereby, for His own glory, He hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. Though spoken of in the plural for our understanding, the decree is in truth one single, comprehensive, eternal act of the divine will, embracing all things—great and small, the fall of a sparrow and the rise of empires, the free acts of men and the salvation of the elect. The Westminster Confession states it with care: God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. Scripture grounds the doctrine throughout: God worketh all things after the counsel of His own will; His counsel shall stand, and He will do all His pleasure; He declares the end from the beginning. The decree is eternal, made before the foundation of the world; unconditional, resting on God’s sovereign good pleasure and not on anything foreseen in the creature; immutable, never frustrated nor revised; and all-comprehensive, leaving nothing to chance. Yet the same God who decrees the end ordains the means, and works through the willing acts of free creatures, so that human responsibility stands intact. The decrees of God are the deep foundation of the believer’s comfort and the ground of providence, election, and the certainty that all things work together for good to them that love God.