CalledToBetter

The Godly Man’s Picture by Thomas Watson: A Review

Thomas Watson wrote The Godly Man’s Picture in 1666. That date should shape your expectations more than anything else on the page. It is a Puritan book, written for readers who took long sentences and close argument for granted, and it does not soften itself for a modern audience.

The structure

Watson’s subtitle is Drawn with a Scripture Pencil, and the book does exactly that. He lays out twenty-four characteristic marks of a man who is going to heaven, and works through them one at a time with Scripture attached to each. Faith, love, humility, sincerity, patience, thankfulness, prayerfulness, heavenly-mindedness, and so on. Because each mark stands on its own, you can read the book in pieces without losing the thread.

The purpose is self-examination. Watson is asking whether the marks are actually on you, and he does not let the reader off easily. Men who find modern devotional writing thin usually find this bracing. Men who want encouragement first will find it heavy going.

It is harder reading than you may be told

An earlier version of this review said the book is accessible to readers unfamiliar with Puritan writing and free of unnecessary complexity. That was too generous. Watson is one of the more readable Puritans, which is a real compliment, but seventeenth-century English is still seventeenth-century English. Expect to slow down. Expect to reread paragraphs. That is normal and it is not a defect in you.

The same earlier version claimed there are no study guides or reflection questions in the text. That part is correct as far as we can tell.

The edition question, and a free option

The ISBN linked here is the Banner of Truth printing in the Puritan Paperbacks series, 288 pages, printed in 2021. Banner of Truth is a real publisher with real editorial standards, and their Puritan Paperbacks are the safe default for this kind of book. We could not confirm from the listing how much modernizing or abridging Banner applied to this specific text, so if a fully unaltered text matters to you, check before ordering.

Search Amazon for this title and you will find a dozen other cheap editions. Most are print-on-demand reprints of the public-domain text with no editor, no introduction, and sometimes poor scanning. Avoid them.

And since the work is from 1666, it is in the public domain. You can read the full text online for free from several Reformed archives before you spend anything. If you are not sure whether Puritan writing suits you, read a chapter free first, then buy the Banner of Truth copy if it does. Paying for the printed edition is worth it if you intend to live with the book, but nobody should buy this sight unseen.

What we removed

An earlier version of this page included a section of quoted reader reactions. Those quotes were not real and have been deleted.

Bottom line

A demanding, genuinely valuable book for self-examination, from one of the clearest of the Puritan writers. Read a free chapter first. If it holds you, buy the Banner of Truth edition and skip the cheap reprints.

View the Banner of Truth edition of The Godly Man’s Picture on Amazon