And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
When any people, you see, who are already of an age to make free decisions of will, approach the sacraments of the faithful, they cannot begin the new life unless they repent of the old. It’s only babies that are exempt from this kind of repentance when they are baptized; after all they are not yet capable of making free choices. However, the faith of those who present them for baptism can avail them for sanctification and the remission of original sin; thus whatever defilement of wrongdoing they may have contracted through others, of whom they have been born, they can be purged of it through the interrogation of these others and the replies they give.
Is it that He Himself withal should set upon His own official chair men who were mindful rather to enjoin-(but) not likewise to practise-sanctity of the flesh, which (sanctity) He had in all ways recommended to their teaching and practising?-first by His own example, then by all other arguments; while He tells (them) that "the kingdom of heavens "is "children's; "
