Matthew 5:14,15

THE CITY ON THE HILL

‘A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.’

Matthew 5:14

How strange and exaggerated such language must have sounded to that rude and rough company which first heard it. Some turned away. Yet it all came true. Those disciples who sat on the Mount did go forth, did mould and shape and change the whole face of the world. Consider text as a description of Christianity.

I. The dominant idea contained in the metaphor. The city upon the hill is thrust upon the notice of all. What does this teach us of the Church of Christ? Religion proclaims the name of God and the action of God whether men will bear or forbear. The witness is maintained in two ways—

(a) By creeds. It is the fashion to depreciate creeds, but it is questionable whether without them Christianity would not long have faded from the earth.

(b) By forms of outward worship. It is true that all worship is worthless which is not the offering of the heart, but truth embodied in outward institutions lives. The habit of private devotion itself has been kept alive by that public witness week by week. Get rid of Sunday, and the very idea of worship would fade out of the national mind.

Christ’s Church was thus to be a mountain in the midst of a plain; a city planted on a hill.

II. The full meaning of that article of the Creed, ‘I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,’ should be dear to us. Get rid of Divine origin of the Church, and the mention of it has no place in Creed. Its beginning must be ascribed to a Power not of this earth before it can present itself as an object of faith. ‘A city set on an hill.’ Yes, the city is there with its baptismal gate and its sacramental table. What is the hill? Faith answers, ‘That hill is the accumulation of Divine providences and eternal decrees.’ Ever existing in the Divine mind, it broke upon the world in goodly proportions when the Risen Lord commissioned His disciples, “Go ye.” The Church is the creation of Jesus Christ Himself.

Bishop Woodford.

Illustration

‘A city set on a hill “cannot be hid.” It cannot. That is the worst of it. We, who belong to the holy city, would willingly escape from out of the light, if we could. We know our weakness. We feel our shame. Bitterly, bitterly, we weep over our unworthiness. We do not deceive ourselves. We know too well how helpless and hopeless we must look to those who judge Jesus Christ by us. We would not put ourselves forward. If only we could be hidden! But, alas! that is just the difficulty. The city that Christ built is set on a hill. And we are of it. Before the eyes of men we must pass as types of what Christianity means. We cannot escape. There is no veil that can be thrown over us. There is no merciful disguise by which we may slip through unobserved. No; we are named Christ’s. We bear His badges. We stand for Him. We count as His. We are in the light and cannot help ourselves.’