A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original review appears below. Ian McPhee is on the staff of Peace River Bible Institute, Sexsmith, Alberta.
All Things for Good. Thomas Watson, Banner of Truth edition: 1986.
Here is a short, attractive printed book which addresses the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” As the title hints, it is an expanded commentary on Romans 8:28. Readers of English church history will recognize the author as that Watson whose devotional commentaries on the shorter catechism, the beatitudes, the ten commandments, and the Lord’s prayer have been repeatedly reprinted in recent years. It was first published under the title A Divine Cordial, in 1663, the year after Watson and some 2,000 other English puritan ministers were ejected from their pulpits by royal decree. Despite these difficult circumstances which acquainted him so intimately with his topic, Watson writes with a warmth and conviction controlled by a delightful pastoral style which speaks clearly of his own maturity in grace and eminent fitness to tell us about Romans 8:28. In this edition the publishers maintain their usual high standards of printing and binding. The cover photograph however — storm clouds over Inverness — is a bit misplaced geographically, as the author laboured in England, but this should not prove offensive to most Presbyterians, and would probably not have occurred at all to the editors!
The opening chapter surveys, in paragraphs rich with scriptural allusion and illustration, eight of the “best things” which work for the good of the godly. Watson never lets an important thought dangle alone in the mind of his readers, but joins it immediately to some colourful image from a relevant passage of Scripture. So the mercies of God are said to make the Christian “fruitful… He does not do with his mercies as Israel with their jewels and ear-rings, make a golden calf, but, as Solomon did with the money thrown into the treasury, build a temple for the Lord” (p. 18). Watson reminds us in this chapter of the ministry of angels, surveying their functions on behalf of the Church in life, death, and at the day of judgement. Here are helpful truths easily forgotten in our sophisticated age. Chapter two examines the evils of “affliction . . . temptation … desertion… and sin,” and shows the covenantal basis of God’s dealings with his people. Watson’s approach to such hard experiences reflects the puritan’s view of sanctification through spiritual warfare against unseen enemies, and may not be recognizable to contemporary exponents of a “health, wealth and victory” kind of triumphalist spirituality. But his exposition of the gracious workings of God through trials, and his description of the faithful Physician, Father, and Friend who works all for the good of his Church, is surely a worthy theology for our renewal today. While we search this book in vain for new insights into the use of spiritual gifts, there is much here about the effect of spiritual grace and the practical results of knowing the God at work not in the spectacular and sensational, but the God whose hand and providential care is the confidence of believers. Watson shows how the effect of grace is to make us think no work”… too mean for us,” but we will readily visit the sick, relieve the poor, wash the saints’ wounds, and take gladly the “meanest” office of love to Christ and his members (p. 87). Here also is a theology for renewal! His chapter on “The evil of sin works for good to the godly” is worth many times the price of the book, as is the lengthy section on love for God, that “most abiding grace.”
The author concludes with two chapters on the believer’s calling, in which he demonstrates a healthy biblical balance. On the one hand Watson reminds us of what Scripture tells us of our natural spiritual helplessness when God summons us in the gospel out of our “vassalage, darkness, impotency, pollution, and damnation.” But he also includes a powerful appeal to exercise our responsibility and walk in a way worthy of God’s call. A final chapter discusses the gracious purpose of God which is the cause of our salvation and our ground of assurance. Many would dismiss these ideas today as the result of the impact of a feudal authoritarian sociology on puritan thinking, and express relief that the Spirit has led us beyond such ideas. For others of us, how ever, these lines are evangelical bedrock, the missing element in modern renewalist thinking. Here God retains the honour of his Name in the gospel of grace, and sinners learn the only explanation we should be found among the blessed company of apostles and martyrs of Jesus. Watson’s book has found a place in my “read again next year” shelf, and I commend it to yours.