Matthew Poole and continuators on Luke 1:34

34 Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seing I know not a Man?

There are some would excuse Mary in this reply and tell us these Words spake in her no doubt, that the things spoken by the Angel should not come to pass, only admiration, or a desire to be further, which way God would effect such a wonder of Providence. Others think her Words hardly excuseable from all guilt, tho the more excuseable, because there had yet been no such President made in the World of the Divine Power, as to cause a Virgin to conceive, and bring forth a Son. The next Words▪ Seeing I know not a Man, seem to import, that she understood the Angel of the present or past time, that she had already conceived, or should immediately conceive, against which she objects her not having any carnal knowledge of any Man. For the Notion of some Papists that would from hence impose upon us to believe, from hence, that Mary had vowed Virginity, as if the sense of th[illegible: 2 letters] Words were. I am resolved never to know Man, it is so ridiculous▪ that no Man of ordinary sense can allow it, for, besides that there wa[illegible: 1 letter] no such vows, that we ever read of amongst the Israelites, nor could any such be made but by the Law of God, might be rescinded, if made when the Virgin was in her Fathers house: and besides that, it is very improbable, that a Jewish Woman should make such a Vow, in whom barrenness was such a reproach, and who lookt upon it as a curse; I say besides these things, who can have such unworthy thoughts of the blessed Virgin, as to think that she should, having made such a vow, admit of an espousal to Ioseph to mock him. But she certainly understood the Angel, as speaking of a thing in being, or which presently should be, and tho she believed what the Angel said, yet is desirous of further satisfaction how such a thing could be, out of the ordinary course of Nature.