The first of these opinions is strenuously contended for by Jews and Deists, who, by confining this passage wholly to Isaiah's son, have attempted to derogate from the authority of St. Matthew, who applies it as a prophecy to CHRIST. But the word here translated _virgin_ signifies, in every other part of the Old Testament, a _woman who hath not known man._ And the consequence from hence is, that the words "a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son," cannot be applied properly to Isaiah's wife. As it is here affirmed that the original word signifies a _virgin_ in every other text, it should be just observed that the text in the book of Proverbs (xxx. 18, 19), which has been often brought to prove the contrary, is not here forgotten; and that even _that_ text might (if the nature of this discourse would permit) be explained fairly and to satisfaction, in a manner perfectly consistent with the preceding assertion. If it should be objected, that the original words are not future, and therefore not likely to point out an event so very distant as the birth of CHRIST, it may be answered that the words are, strongly translated, "Behold! a virgin is conceiving and bearing a son," &c. This mode of speech is the animated but customary style of prophetic Scripture, which, in order to express the greatest certainty, describes future events as _past,_ or paints future scenes as _present_ to the eye. Thus the same prophet, in his most magnificent predictions of the Messiah's birth, exultingly cries, "Unto us a child IS BORN, unto us a son IS GIVEN:" and afterwards, in his pathetic description of the Messiah's sufferings, "He is despised and rejected of men. . . . Surely He HATH BORNE our griefs," &c. But though no argument can be drawn against the Christian sense of these prophetic words from their expressing the then present time, yet an argument of great weight may, and must be, formed upon this very circumstance, in proof of what is here contended for. And certainly, if the words mean _"a virgin is conceiving,"_ a woman conceiving was yet a virgin! this wonderful circumstance was true as to the Virgin Mary, but it was true as to no other woman.