203. Since, therefore, every man after death lives for ever, and according to his life here has a place assigned to him either in heaven or in hell, and since both heaven and hell must exist in such a form as will act as one, as was said before; and since no one can be assigned in that form any place but his own, it follows that the human race throughout the whole world is under the guidance of the Lord, and that everyone from infancy even to the end of his life is led by Him in the most individual things and his place foreseen and also provided.
[2] From these things it is clear that the Divine Providence of the Lord is universal because it is in the most individual things; and that this is the infinite and eternal creation which the Lord provided for Himself by means of the creation of the universe. Man does not see anything of this universal providence; and if he did, it could not appear to him otherwise than as passers-by see the scattered heaps and collections of materials from which a house is to be built; while the Lord sees it as a magnificent palace with its work of construction and enlargement continually going on.