On God Decreeing The Fall

I have often warned people of the dangers of fighting an extreme view. Sometimes fighting an extreme causes one to go to an opposite extreme. On any road there is a ditch on either side into which one may fall. Staying on the road and avoiding the ditches of extremism in bible interpretation requires constant care and attention. Many vehicles have ended up in the ditch because the driver was careless and thus did not stay in the road.

When it comes to understanding the "decrees of God," or predestination, many people have a hard time keeping the car on the road, failing to correctly understand or accept the truth of the bible on the subject. Just ask the average person this question - "did God will the fall of man?"

Jerome Zanchius in his famous work on the subject, wrote:

"Surely, if God had not willed the fall, He could, and no doubt would, have prevented it; but He did not prevent it: ergo He willed it. And if He willed it, He certainly decreed it, for the decree of God is nothing else but the seal and ratification of His Will. He does nothing but what He decreed, and He decreed nothing which He did not will, and both will and decree are absolutely eternal, though the execution of both be in time." (see here)

I find this argumentation irrefutable.

In the 1689 London Baptist Confession, it is thus written:

"...his determinate counsel extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sinful actions both of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission..." (1689 London Confession, section 5, Divine Providence)

This is also what the "Primitive" or "Old School" Baptists all believed and taught for the first several decades of their separate existence. Prior to the Civil War it was the belief of nearly all of the PBs that all things come to pass as a result of God's decree, or predestination.