10. [part]
Do not forget, dear little children that, like other human beings, you are ruined and sinful in body and soul. People talk about “innocent children” and the proper understanding of it is this: that children, when they are protected from many evil things that happen in the world, do not know about them and have no part of them. But if one wanted to think that children as such and according to their nature were unspotted and that neither in their body nor soul there lay any ruination nor sinfulness, then one would stray certainly from the truth. For the Lord our God, Who preached a sermon to Moses and described Himself according to His Grace, Mercy and Patience, adds to this that before Him no one is guiltless. If, according to the divine pronouncement, no one is innocent before God, then neither are children innocent before Him. When God the Lord says that the thought and desire of the human heart is evil from youth upward and forever, this also includes little children.
So dear children, hear that you are also sinful human beings. In common life one sometimes hears “That person is as good as a child.” If however one takes with that the word of the Lord our Savior that “There is none good but the One Who is God the Lord,” it can be easily understood that this turn of speech is only so to be taken to mean that the person is like a child and there is nothing to be feared from him.
Why then does the Savior tell His Disciples: “You must then be converted and become like the little children, if you want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven”? Answer: the Lord our Savior had a little child in front of Him and placed it in the midst of His Disciples. They were fighting with each other about who would be the greatest and loftiest among them. In little children this vice has not awakened yet. If you place a little farmer child next to a small royal prince, they will mutually not know any difference between themselves. Such children are content with what they have today and do not worry about what tomorrow may bring. They don’t think far ahead.
I said that little children have not had the ruination awakened that lies in them by nature. With older children as the years go by, however, it expresses itself more and more that through the Fall of Adam our human nature and entire being is altogether ruined. If you yourself will just pause, you will soon perceive it in [...]
Something
of Bodily Care for Children
Translated by Pastor Roy Ledbetter
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