nakedness of sundry female relations, is it reasonable to doubt which meaning of the Hebrew word, translated nakedness, is suggested? Does He not refer to the pudenda? and is it not plain that, connected as it is with the verb uncover, the prohibition forbids sexual intercourse? Compare with these prohibitions Levit. 20:17.
This in effect is admitted by the Puritan; for, in p. 11, he denominates the acts forbidden, "single acts of an incestuous character." And the whole paragraph, from which these words are quoted, shows that he saw the acts prohibited to be acts of unlawful sexual intercourse. It was, then, unnecessary for him to labor so much on the meaning of the single word עֶרְוָה; and indeed his labor was worse than useless; for it led him astray. The meaning of the phrase he presents, in the paragraph referred to before he enters on his learned research; but when he arrives at the end of it, he is so misled, by dwelling so much on a single word, that he substitutes the meaning of this single word that best pleased him for the two words; and a general for a definite phrase. The plain and obvious terms of the law, he explains by terms that do
