Who can bring a clean [thing] out of an unclean? not one.
Ver. 4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one] q. d. I confess I am unclean; but what can I do withal? or how can I do otherwise, since I do but my kind? But was this a sufficient plea? David was of another mind when he alleged this as a great aggravation of his bloodguiltiness, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me," Psalms 51:5 : q.d. I have not only fallen into these foul sins, but I have done it out of the venomousness and vitiosity of my nature, commonly called original, and by the apostle inhabiting sin, Romans 7:17, as by the schools peccatum peccans, the sinning sin, as that which is the source and seminary of all actual disobedience. And because this uncleanness is natural to us, therefore it maketh us as loathsome to God as a toad is to us, because poison is in the nature of it. Papists say (but not truly) that original sin is the smallest of all sins, not deserving any more of God's wrath than only a want of his blessed presence; and that too without any pain or sorrow of mind from the apprehension of so great a loss. They hold also those motions of the heart not consented to be no sins, but necessary conditions, arising from our constitution, and such as Adam had in his innocence. Contrariwise, Job here grants a birthblot upon all, and lays his hand upon it as the cause of the length of men's troubles and shortness of their lives; only he forgetteth himself (saith Mercer here) when he pleadeth that he should rather be pitied than thus sharply punished, because he was naturally inclined to sin, and cannot avoid it. For as Aristotle saith of drunkards, that they deserve double punishments, διπλα τα τπιτιμια (Ethic. lib. 3, cap. 5); first, for their drunkenness, and then for the sin committed in and by their drunkenness: so do all men deserve double damnation; first, for the corruption of nature (signified by those legal pollutions, by bodily issues), and then for the cursed effects of it, Gen 6:5 Romans 7:8. But it may be Job here had an eye to that promise made to Noah after the flood, Genesis 8:21, where the Lord moveth himself to mercy by consideration of man's native corruption, even from his childhood, for he knoweth our frame, &c., Psalms 103:14, that is (as the Chaldee paraphrast explaineth it), he knoweth our evil figment or thought which impelleth to sin; he knoweth it, and weigheth it. See the like Isaiah 48:8,9. We may beseech the Lord to spare us when we act in sin, because our natures are sinful; but let not any go about either to palliate or extenuate their acts of sin by the sinfulness of their natures; as those do, who, being told of their evil pranks and practices, plead for them, saying, We are flesh and blood, &c.
Not one] Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis; but no mere man can bring forth a clean child out of unclean seed. Adam begat a son after his own image, Genesis 5:3. Corruptus corruptum, that which is of the flesh, John 3:3,8. Sin is propagated, and proceedeth from the union of body and soul into one man. That phrase, warmed in sin, Psalms 51:5, is meant of the preparation of the body, as an instrument of evil, which is not so actually till the soul come. But we should not be so inquisitive how sin came in, as how to be rid of it; like as when a fire is kindled in a city, all men are more careful to quench it than to question where and how it began. Now there is one only way of ridding our hearts of sin, viz. to run to Christ, and to believe in him; "For if the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed"; and hereunto, both the Chaldee paraphrast had respect, likely, when he rendered this text, Cannot one? that is, cannot God? as also the Vulgate Latin, Nonne tu qui solus es? Canst not thou alone? sc. by thy merit and Spirit, according to that of the apostle, 1 Corinthians 6:11 .