4786. 'And his father wept for him' means interior mourning. This is clear from the meaning of 'weeping' as the extremity of grief and sadness, and so as interior mourning. In the ancient Churches the external practices by which, internal things were represented included those of wailing and weeping over the dead. Their wailing and weeping meant interior mourning, although their actual mourning was not interior. One reads the following, for example, about the Egyptians who had set out with Joseph to bury Jacob,

When they came to the threshing-floor of Atad which is at the crossing of the Jordan they wailed there with an exceedingly great and grievous wailing, and he mourned for his father seven days. And the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, and they said, This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians. Genesis 50:10-11.

And one reads about David weeping over Abner,

They buried Abner in Hebron, and the king lifted up his voice and wept at the grave of Abner; and all the people wept. 2 Samuel 3:32.

528. IT IS NOT SO DIFFICULT TO LIVE THE LIFE THAT LEADS TO HEAVEN AS IS BELIEVED.

There are some who believe that to live the life that leads to heaven, which is called the spiritual life, is difficult, because they have been told that man must renounce the world, must divest himself of the lusts called the lusts of the body and the flesh, and must live spiritually; and they understand this to mean that they must discard worldly things, which consist chiefly in riches and honors; that they must walk continually in pious meditation on God, salvation, and eternal life; and must spend their life in prayers and in reading the Word and pious books. Such is their idea of renouncing the world, and living in the spirit and not in the flesh. But that this is not at all true it has been given me to know by much experience and from conversation with the angels. I have learned, in fact, that those who renounce the world and live in the spirit in this manner acquire a sorrowful life that is not receptive of heavenly joy, since everyone's life continues the same after death. On the contrary, to receive the life of heaven a man must needs live in the world and engage in its business and employments, and by means of a moral and civil life there receive the spiritual life. In no other way can the spiritual life be formed in man, or his spirit prepared for heaven; for to live an internal life and not at the same time an external life is like dwelling in a house that has no foundation, that gradually sinks or becomes cracked and rent asunder, or totters till it falls.