All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude
In the hearing of his disciples, whilst in the ship, the multitude being on the shore,
in parables;
in the four foregoing ones;
and without a parable spake he not unto them:
not that he never had preached but in a parabolical way unto them, or that he never did afterwards use any other way of speaking; for it is certain, that both before and after, he delivered himself plainly, and without figures: but the meaning is, that in that sermon, and at that time, he thought fit to make use of no other method, as appears from the many other parables he afterwards delivered; and though he explained the meaning of some of them to his disciples, at their request, yet he dismissed the multitude without any explication of them.