Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 258
Everyone who thinks from reason can be sure that all are born
for heaven and no one for hell, and if man comes into hell he
himself is culpable; but little children cannot be held culpable.
330. When children die they are still children in the other
life, having a like infantile mind, a like innocence in ignorance,
and a like tenderness in all things. They are merely in the
rudiments of a capacity to become angels, for children are not
angels but become angels. For everyone passing out of this
world enters the other in the same state of life, a little child in
the state of a little child, a boy in the state of a boy, a youth, a
man, an old man, in the state of a youth, a man, or an old
man; but subsequently each one’s state is changed. The state of
little children surpasses the state of all others in that they are in
innocence, and evil has not yet been rooted in them by actual
life; and in innocence all things of heaven can be implanted,
for it is a receptacle of the truth of faith and of the good of
love.
331. The state of children in the other life far surpasses their
state in the world, for they are not clothed with an earthly
body, but with such a body as the angels have. The earthly
body is in itself gross, and receives its first sensations and first
motions not from the inner or spiritual world, but from the
outer or natural world; and in consequence in this world
children must be taught to walk, to guide their motions, and to
speak; and even their senses, as seeing and hearing, must be
opened by use. It is not so with children in the other life. As
they are spirits they act at once in accordance with their
interiors, walking without practice, and also talking, but at first
from general affections not yet distinguished into ideas of
thought; but they are quickly initiated into these also, for the
reason that their exteriors are homogeneous with their
interiors. The speech of angels (as may be seen above, n.
234–245) so flows forth from affection modified by ideas of
thought that their speech completely conforms to their
thoughts from affection.