ns, punishing faults and rewarding
merits, and pardoning him who truly repents of evil committed; He is a
perpetual source of the purest love, hence a merciful father to all His
creatures, unto whom He continually pours forth treasures of His
kindness; He strengthens the weak, comforts the afflicted, enlightens
the ignorant, protects the oppressed, and grants the prayer of those who
trust in Him; He governs human events according to His will, now causing
human enterprises to succeed, anon to fail; always directing them to the
ends contemplated by His infinite wisdom, for He is the all-wise, just,
and faithful, whose promises are infallibly accomplished, and whose word
subsists to eternity. He sometimes suspends the order of nature, and
works miracles, whenever He deems it suitable to His high designs. He
established a covenant with the Abrahamitic race, and revealed to it His
holy law, by this means to illuminate and bless all mankind.

[Note 3: This expression is here used to indicate the direct and
special relation of God with man, and the direct government of mankind
by God, without intermediate agencies, in contradistinction to the other
terrestrial creatures, whose relation with the Creator is only general,
and which are governed through the medium of pre-established physical
laws.--THE TRANSLATOR.]

LXXVIII. Although these notions do not complete the idea of the
Divinity, much less can they claim to define His essence--for to the
very limited faculties of the human mind this will always remain
inconceivable--yet they are sufficient to afford such an instruction on
divine subjects as to satisfy the wants of humanity. With the guidance
of the elements offered, and by a conscientious meditation on those
Divine attributes, man will be able to dispel the superstitious notions
and the errors into which they have fallen, who have not consulted the
Divine word on such a subject; he will be able to sketch in his own mind
an idea, however incomplete, of the sublime object of his adoration, and
thus preserve himself from much that is evil. Having been destined to
live in society, and compelled to work in order to supply the
multifarious wants of his body; always more or less struggling with the
interests of his fellow men to secure a possession often disputed to him
by malice, or violence; and evil example and ignorance and the sensual
appetites being concurrently at work--man became naturally, in the course
of time, too