d, and said unto
them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not,
for of such is the kingdom of God;" and then immediately explained what
He meant by this last assertion, which is so often misunderstood and
misapplied, by adding, in the words of the text, "Verily I say unto you,
whosoever shall not _receive the kingdom of God as a little child"_ that
is with a child-like spirit, "he shall not enter therein." For our Lord
does not here lay down a doctrinal position, and affirm the moral
innocence of childhood. He does not mark off and discriminate the
children as sinless, from their parents as sinful, as if the two classes
did not belong to the same race of beings, and were not involved in the
same apostasy and condemnation. He merely sets childhood and manhood
over-against each other as two distinct stages of human life, each
possessing peculiar traits and tempers, and affirms that it is the meek
spirit of childhood, and not the proud spirit of manhood, that welcomes
and appropriates the Christian salvation. He is only contrasting the
general attitude of a child, with the general attitude of a man. He
merely affirms that the _trustful_ and _believing_ temper of childhood,
as compared with the _self-reliant_ and _skeptical_ temper of manhood, is
the temper by which both the child and the man are to receive the
blessings of the gospel which both of them equally need.

The kingdom of God is represented in the New Testament, sometimes as
subjective, and sometimes as objective; sometimes as within the soul of
man, and sometimes as up in the skies. Our text combines both
representations; for, it speaks of a man's "receiving" the kingdom of
God, and of a man's "entering" the kingdom of God; of the coming of
heaven into a soul, and of the going of a soul into heaven. In other
passages, one or the other representation appears alone. "The kingdom of
God,"--says our Lord to the Pharisees,--"cometh not with observation.
Neither shall they say, Lo here, or lo there: for behold the kingdom of
God is within you." The apostle Paul, upon arriving at Rome, invited the
resident Jews to discuss the subject of Christianity with him. "And when
they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging, to
whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God,"--to whom he
explained the nature of the Christian religion,--"persuading them
concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets,
fro