Read this excerpt from The Crisis, Number 1, by Thomas Paine. "I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent."

Which is the best way to paraphrase the underlined portion of the excerpt?

a. I believe that
b. I fear that
c. I know that
d. I am not sure that