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When the Lord had brought his people to this, that they saw no help in any thing but himself, then he takes the quarrel into his own hand; and tho’ they had made a pit, as deep as hell for the Christians that summer, yet the Lord hurled themselves into it.

In the final pages of her narrative, Rowlandson summarizes the situation of the past several months. This statement is important because it again emphasizes Rowlandson’s belief in the centrality of God’s will. Far from believing in a distant or absent God, Rowlandson and the Puritans have faith in an active God who determines the course of daily events on earth. This God is an angry and punishing God, but he is also forgiving. He has plagued the colonists with Native American attacks and the violence of King Philip’s War in order to teach them a lesson. Once they have learned their lesson and understand the insignificance of outward appearances and wealth and the powerlessness of humans in the face of the divine, God is willing once again to embrace the Christians as his chosen people. Though the Native Americans have had a string of victories and though it had seemed that they might win the war altogether, it is now their turn to learn a lesson. Pride comes before a fall, the saying goes, and now God is turning things in the Puritans’ favor. This quotation expresses confidence in God’s capacity for mercy and forgiveness, as well as knowledge of his power and capacity for wrath.

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