Mary Rowlandson

Mary Rowlandson finds solace in the Bible during her captivity, and her charity and kindness prompt her to help others when she is able, often by helping them find solace in the Bible as well. In the narrator of The Sovereignty and Goodness of God she relied on her faith in the divine intervention of God to sustain herself during her period of captivity. Rowlandson believes God plays an active role in people’s lives, showing his grace in the form of safety and well-being and expressing his disapproval by plaguing people with misfortunes or tragedy. The use of the same vocabulary of suffering, exile in the wilderness, and ultimate redemption shows a common religious framework. Rowlandson casts herself alternately as Job whose suffering is a test of his faith which illustrated her belief that the Puritans were the chosen people of God. The Puritans were known for their piety, and they saw themselves as a “community of saints.”

When assessing the well-timed attack of the Indians on Lancaster, which took place shortly after the troops protecting the town left for want of provisions, Rowlandson wrote that God "orders all things for his holy ends": God punished Joseph's brothers, who lacked remorse for selling Joseph into slavery, by making them the unknowing captives of Joseph years after they had committed their sin. By referring to this biblical story, Rowlandson compared the sinful brothers of Joseph to the sinful Puritan colonists of New England. Additionally, Rowlandson believed that God was punishing his people for breaking their special covenant as his chosen people. She described the relationship between the Indians and the colonists as one orchestrated by God. "She reinforced her conviction that God punished her people through the Indians by quoting the scriptural voice of God saying "Oh, that my people had harkened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways; I should soon have subdued their enemies and turned my hand against their adversaries."

Anne...