Repentance

Six Doctrinal Classes
by
Rt. Reverend Nathaniel Dandridge Pendleton
Late Bishop of The General Church Of The New Jerusalem and President of The Academy of The New Church

PREFACE

Three years before his death, and a year and a half prior to his retirement as Executive Bishop of the General Church, the Rt. Reverend Nathaniel Dandridge Pendleton wrote and presented to the Bryn Athyn Society this series of doctrinal classes on Repentance. One of the foremost scholars and writers in the church, Bishop Pendleton had authored innumerable sermons, classes, and addresses which he gave in societies from Bryn Athyn to the farthest-flung corners of the General Church, spanning a period of some twenty-five years. He studied the Writings in depth and presented the results of his doctrinal understanding accordingly.

In apparent contrast to his usual intellectual style, the Bishop's classes on Repentance, although they were not written for publication, are expressed in a simplicity of form and thought sequence that points up all the more strongly the profound depth of understanding and life's perception to which his unique mind had come over his nearly fifty years as a pastor, theologian, and administrator. These classes are here presented in the hope that they will lead the mind of the reader back to the Heavenly Doctrines themselves, with a fuller and richer appreciation of their teachings as the Very Word of the Lord in His Second Advent.