in order that he
may act in freedom according to reason, thus as of himself, and not drop
his hands and await influx. From all this it follows that proposition iii
to be demonstrated has been confirmed: _Through His divine providence the
Lord leads the affections of the life's love of man and at the same time
the thoughts, too, from which human prudence comes._

201. (iv) _By His divine providence the Lord assembles the affections of
all mankind into one form--the human form._ In a subsequent paragraph it
will be seen that this is the universal effort of divine providence.
Those who ascribe everything to nature deny God at heart, and those who
ascribe everything to human prudence, at heart deny divine providence;
the one cannot be separated from the other. Yet both groups for their
reputation's sake and for fear of losing it profess in words that divine
providence is universal, but say its details fall to man and in their
aggregate are grasped by human prudence.

[2] But consider: what is universal providence when the details are taken
from it? Is it anything but just an expression? For that is called
universal which consists of the total of details as what is general does
of particulars. If, then, you remove details, what is the universal
except something empty, thus like a surface with nothing underneath or an
aggregate without content? If it should be said that divine providence is
a universal government but nothing is governed but only held in
connection and items of the government are handled by others, can this be
called a universal government? No king has such a government. For if a
king gave his subjects the government of everything in his kingdom, he
would no longer be king, but would only be called king; he would have the
standing in name only and not in fact. In the case of such a king one
cannot speak of government, still less of universal government.

[3] God's providence is called man's prudence. As universal prudence
cannot be said of a king who has only kept the name so that the kingdom
may be called a kingdom and be held together, so one cannot speak of
universal providence if human beings provide everything by their own
prudence. The same is true of the terms "universal providence" and
"universal government" in reference to nature when they mean that God
created the universe but endowed nature to produce everything from
herself. What is "universal providence" then but a metaphysical term, and
nothin