That innocence is the receptacle of all heavenly good things, and therefore that the innocence of Little Children is the plane or ground of all their affections for good and truth, may appear from what has been said before … The innocence of Children was imaged to me by the representation of a Child in wood with scarce any thing of life in it, but which was vivified gradually, answerably to the progress of Children in their knowledge of truth, and their affection for good: and afterwards I had a representation of genuine innocence in a very beautiful Child quite lively and naked: for the innocents which are in the inmost Heaven, and such nearest to the Lord, appear as Little Children … In a word, the more the Angels excel in wisdom, the higher is their degree of innocence; and the higher their degree of innocence, the more do they appear to one another as Little Children: hence it is that Infancy in the Word signifies innocence.
Excerpted from A Treatise Concerning Heaven and Hell, and of the Wonderful Things Therein by Emanuel Swedenborg. Translated from the original Latin and published in the second edition by R. Hindmarsh, London, 1784.