Cited in sermons
John Norton
2 sermons · All people cited
CTF 2026 - Session 1: God's Decree in the Puritan Confessions
The doctrine of God's eternal decree, as confessed in the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Savoy Declaration, and the Second London Baptist Confession of 1677/1689, is not a single isolated chapter but a thread woven through the entire fabric of Reformed confessional theology. Drawing on Isaiah 46:8–11, this study traces the decree from its grounding in the doctrine of divine simplicity through creation, providence, the fall, covenant, redemption, the ordo salutis, perseverance, the spread of the gospel, and final judgment. The three Puritan-era confessions are shown to form a deliberate family — Westminster as parent, Savoy as child, and the Second London as grandchild — sharing common language and structure while registering careful Baptist and Congregationalist revisions. The study calls hearers not to speculative curiosity but to humble worship before the sovereign God whose decree is simply God decreeing.
CTF 2026 - Session 2: Introducing "Of God's Decree"
What does it mean that God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass, and how should that staggering claim be approached without either flattening its force or drawing false conclusions from it? This lecture introduces 1689 London Baptist Confession chapter three ('Of God's Decree'), establishing three guiding principles for the study: the decree is not our duty to obey, it remains largely veiled in mystery despite its scriptural attestation, and it demands a robust creator-creature distinction throughout. Working through 2LCF chapters two through five as a unified doctrinal unit, the lecture distinguishes God's imminent work of decreeing from his transitive works of creation and providence, and sets up the question — to be addressed in the following session — of whether God's comprehensive decree makes him the author of sin.