Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

¹⁰ Does this perhaps perplex you, that I said of a virgin, and Paul says of a woman? Let not this perplex you; let us not stop here, for I am not speaking to persons without instruction. The Scripture says both, both “of a virgin,” and “of a woman.” Where says it, “of a virgin? Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son.” And “of a woman,” as you have just heard; here there is no contradiction. For the peculiarity of the Hebrew tongue gives the name of “women” not to such as have lost their virgin estate, but to females generally. You have a plain passage in Genesis, when Eve herself was first made, “He made her a woman.” Scripture also in another place says, that God ordered “the women” to be separated “which had not known man by lying with him.” This then ought now to be well established, and should not detain us, that so we may be able to explain, by the Lord's assistance, what will deservedly detain us.