22. When the Dove, sent out of the Ark, return’d with a green Olive Leaf, according to the Original: how the Leaf, after ten Months, and under water, should still maintain a verdure or greenness, need not much amuse the Reader, if we consider that the Olive Tree is Ἀείφυλλον, or continually green; that the Leaves are of a bitter taste, and of a fast and lasting substance. Since we also find fresh and green Leaves among the Olives which we receive from remote Countries; and since the Plants at the bottom of the Sea, and on the sides of Rocks, maintain a deep and fresh verdure.
How the Tree should stand so long in the Deluge under Water, may partly be allowed from the uncertain determination of the Flows and Currents of that time, and the qualification of the saltness of the Sea, by the admixture of fresh Water, when the whole watery Element was together.
And it may be signally illustrated from the like examples in Theophrastus[195] and Pliny[196] in words to this effect: Even the Sea affordeth Shrubs and Trees; In the red Sea whole Woods do live, namely of Bays and Olives bearing Fruit. The Souldiers of Alexander, who sailed into India, made report, that the Tides were so high in some Islands, that they overflowed, and covered the Woods, as high as Plane and Poplar Trees. The lower sort wholly, the greater all but the tops, whereto the Mariners fastned their Vessels at high Waters, and at the root in the Ebb; That the Leaves of these Sea Trees while under water looked green, but taken out presently dried with the heat of the Sun. The like is delivered by Theophrastus, that some Oaks do grow and bear Acrons under the Sea.
Grain of Mustard-seed in S. Matt 13. 31, 32.
23. The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of Mustard-seed, which a Man took and sowed in his Field, which indeed is the least of all Seeds; but when ’tis grown is the greatest among Herbs, and becometh a Tree, so that the Birds of the Air come and lodge in the Branches thereof.
Luke 13. 19. It is like a grain of Mustard-seed, which a Man took and cast it into his Garden, and it waxed a great Tree, and the Fowls of the Air lodged in the Branches thereof.
This expression by a grain of Mustard-seed, will not seem so strange unto you, who well consider it. That it is simply the least of Seeds, you cannot apprehend, if you have beheld the Seeds of Rapunculus, Marjorane, Tobacco, and the smallest Seed of Lunaria.
But you may well understand it to be the smallest Seed among Herbs which produce so big a Plant, or the least of herbal Plants, which arise unto such a proportion, implied in the expression; the smallest of Seeds, and becometh the greatest of Herbs.
And you may also grant that it is the smallest of Seeds of Plants apt to δενδρίζειν, arborescere, fruticescere, or to grow unto a ligneous substance, and from an herby and oleraceous Vegetable, to become a kind of Tree, and to be accounted among the Dendrolachana, or Arboroleracea; as upon strong Seed, Culture and good Ground, is observable in some Cabbages, Mallows, and many more, and therefore expressed by γίνεται τὸ δένδρον, and γίνεται εἰς τὸν δένδρον, it becometh a Tree, or arborescit, as Beza rendreth it.
Nor if warily considered doth the expression contain such difficulty. For the Parable may not ground it self upon generals, or imply any or every grain of Mustard, but point at such a grain as from its fertile spirit, and other concurrent advantages, hath the success to become arboreous, shoot into such a magnitude, and acquire the like tallness. And unto such a Grain the Kingdom of Heaven is likened which from such slender beginnings shall find such increase and grandeur.