A God Who Deceives?

I wonder how people reacted to Galileo's claim of seeing stars that are invisible to the naked eye. Especially since, as we have discussed, the stars that are visible to the naked eye are already so numerous. Yet Galileo claims to be able to see a vast quantity of stars that are otherwise hidden. He says, "There are more than five hundred new stars distributed among the old ones within limits of one or two degrees of arc" (47). People had always thought that the stars were given to man by God. What could it mean that God had hidden so many from man? Is God deceptive? This actually reminds me of a line from Bacon (which I would quote if I had my book with me) when he says that the glory of God is to hide things while the glory of a king (Solomon) is to discover them [I think that's pretty much how it went]. Bacon seems to be ok with the idea that God would hide things. Can we rectify the concept of a benevolent God with the fact that He hides things from man? Is it perhaps necessary that He deceives (or seems to deceive), since He is incomprehensible to the human understanding?