We might suppose that, if they have been guilty of no actual transgressions, they would be lacking in Christian humility, or that continual sense of dependence on the Lord, which those feel who have experienced His gracious deliverance from the thraldom of sin. We might suppose that they would fall into a state of spiritual pride or self-righteousness, and imagine that they were good in and of themselves alone. This, however, is provided against with infinite wisdom and care. In order to induce in them a becoming humility, and to convince them where and what they are hereditarily—to convince them, that, in and of themselves they are nothing but evil, and that they are every moment dependent on the Lord for whatever good there is in them, they are occasionally remitted into their hereditary evils, and kept in them until they see and acknowledge this great truth. Upon this point Swedenborg says:
"The innocence of infants is not genuine innocence, because it is without wisdom. Genuine innocence is wisdom, for in proportion as any one is wise, he loves to be led by the Lord; or, what is the same thing, in proportion as any one is led by the Lord he is wise. Infants therefore are led from external innocence, in which they are first—and which is called the innocence of infancy—to internal innocence, which is the innocence of wisdom. The innocence of wisdom is the end of all their instruction and progression, and therefore when they come to the innocence of wisdom, the innocence of infancy, which had served them in the mean time as a plane, is conjoined to them.
