Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/63

Rh Lot was commanded to leave Sodom, being informed by unquestionable authority that the Lord would destroy the city with its inhabitants; his faith led him to flee to the mountain, the divinely appointed place of refuge. It was this living, active faith, that marked the character of the Christian so highly commended in the passage under consideration. It is important to believe all the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, such as the Divinity of Christ, his vicarious sacrifice, the necessity of repentance, faith and obedience; the doctrines of future rewards and punishment. But it is not enough speculatively to believe these truths; it is indispensable that we have a realizing sense of the great importance of them in their personal application; otherwise, we shall stand justly charged with having only the form of godliness while we are destitute of the power thereof. It was not thus with the eminent Christian here proposed as a pattern worthy of imitation.