"This book is the most extensive study to date of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century belief that God actively intervened in human affairs to punish, reward, and chastise. Providentialism has often been seen as a distinctive hallmark of puritan piety. However, Dr. Walsham argues that it was a cluster of assumptions that penetrated every sector of English society, cutting across the boundaries created by status, creed, education, and wealth."--Publisher description.