ABSTRACT
Those words, from Grace Mildmay’s scriptural meditations, help to capture what it meant for lay people to read the Bible and take up the pen for themselves. The themes and sentiments here are conventional—earthly transience, the word given to patriarchs, and the strength that the redeemed find in meditation on that word. Yet the passage reveals that Mildmay was not only a product of godly culture but also a producer of her own narrative within it. The phrasing is scriptural in style, using the rhythms and images of prophetic discourse and of Mary’s response to the annunciation, yet it is Mildmay’s own language, and she speaks authoritatively in the first-person plural. Further, the passage locates her in various positions, alongside patriarchs, alongside readers of Scripture, with the redeemed, within a transient cosmos, and finally in relation to the lasting Word held in her heart. In her words we see the confidence of voice, method, and style made possible by Scripture reading, and we see an authority not usually associated with early modern women.
