that ôTwas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,/Taught my benighted soul to understand/That thereÆs a God, that thereÆs a Saviour to:/Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.ö In other words, though Wheatley is decrying the fact that she has been enslaved, she is also attributing to her enslavement her salvation because it is through her interaction with Christians that she has come to know God.
One would have expected that Belinda, in her ôPetition,ö would also have made reference to the Christian God. Instead, Belinda owed her devotion ôto the Great Orissa, who creates all things (in Pitcher, 202).ö BelindaÆs ôdishonored Deityö received more attention from her in her ôPetitionö than the Christian and God who is mentioned nowhere except quite obliquely and in a negative manner: ôthe laws had rendered me incapable of receiving property; and though
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