Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/116

112 grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord Jehovih, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. The soul that sinneth, it shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him," Ezek. xviii. 2, 3, 20. The Lord further declares concerning little children, and especially concerning those represented by them, viz. the innocent and the humble, that "of such is the kingdom of God," Mark x. 14. All infants and children, dying before they come to the use of reason, and the exercise of judgment, whether born within the church or without it, whether baptized or unbaptized, and whether they be the offspring of godly or of ungodly parents, are accepted by the Lord, and received into heaven; where they are educated by angels according to divine order, and, after instruction and progressive advances in understanding and wisdom, at length become happy angels themselves. For as death is only a continuation of the life begun in the world, and man neither loses nor gains any thing by the change, (except that the gross material body is then laid aside, never to be re-assumed,) so in the case of infants, they are equally such in the other life, of like innocence, tenderness, and ignorance; and therefore, like young plants, they must be gradually introduced into the heavenly life. Yet this advantage attends them, above others who live to be adults, that, being in innocence, actual evil by consent of will and judgment has not taken root in them; in consequence of which they are more easily receptive of instruction and heavenly good.