LVIII. Abraham and his race having been called upon to perpetuate the idea of the relation existing between God and man, it was obviously necessary that such a relation should be fixed and established in a more precise mode in the individuals of that race than it was in any others; in other words, it was necessary to show clearly that the idea, which was to be promoted among others, was firmly seated, under permanent and concrete forms, in those who were called upon to propagate it. This permanency of the relation exhibited itself, then, to Abraham and his posterity under the form of a _covenant_ between God and that family, whereby the contracting parties, as it were, promised and undertook to maintain certain conditions, upon which depended the subsistence of that relation. The mutual conditions established were, in substance, nothing else than the universal relations subsisting between God and every rational being, but expressed, with respect to Abraham's, family, in more special and characteristic terms, viz., under a form in which God promised Abraham that He would be particularly _his God_, his Protector, Guardian, and Benefactor; and the Abrahamites, on their part, bound themselves to recognise _Him alone_ as the Deity, to whom adoration and loyal obedience were due. Thus the covenant, which had been formerly established in general terms with Noah, as the representative of all mankind, was afterwards confirmed in more specific terms to the Abrahamites, as those who were appointed to keep and to promote among mankind the fulfilment of the conditions of the said relation. Considering the Abrahamitic covenant in this point of view, all objections of unreasonable exclusiveness and unjust predilection, which have been sometimes urged, must disappear. The God of Abraham is the God of the universe; and the descendants of Abraham propose to themselves nothing more than the attainment of that same happiness to which every mortal can aspire.