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But to pass from these general observations on the imagery drawn from the vegetable world to that particular figure which Christ employs in our text. Observe, we pray you, the minuteness of the seed, which is ordinarily first deposited by God's Spirit in man's heart. If you examine the records of Christian biography, you will find, so far as it is possible to search out such facts, that conversion is commonly to be traced to inconsiderable beginnings. We believe, for example, that proceeding on the principle that He will honour what He has instituted, God ordinarily uses the preaching of the gospel as His engine for gathering in His people. But then it is perhaps single sentence in a sermon, a text which is quoted, a remark to which, probably, if you had asked the preacher himself, he attached less consequence than to any other part of his sermon — this is the seed, the inconsiderable grain, which makes its way into the heart of the unconverted hearer. We just wish that a book could be compiled, registering the sayings, the words, which, falling from the lips of preachers in different ages, have penetrated that thick coating of indifference and prejudice which lies naturally on every man's heart, and reached the soil in which vegetation is possible. We are quite persuaded that you would not find many whole sermons in such a book, not many long pieces of elaborate reasoning, not many protracted demonstrations of human danger and human need; we have a thorough belief that the volume would be a volume of little fragments, that it would be made up of simple sentiments and brief statements; and that, in the majority of instances, a few syllables would constitute that element of Christianity which gained a lodgment in the soul.

(H. Melvill.)

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KJV: And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it?

WEB: He said, "How will we liken the Kingdom of God? Or with what parable will we illustrate it?