Proverbs 30:12 [There is] a generation [that are] pure in their own eyes, and [yet] is not washed from their filthiness.
Ver. 12. There is a generation that are pure, &c.] As the ancient Puritans, the Novatians, Donatists, Catharists, Illuminates. Non habeo, Domine, cui ignoscas, said one justiciary: I have done nothing, Lord, that needs thy pardon. "Ye are those that justify yourselves," saith Christ to the Pharisees. "All these things have I done from my youth; what want I yet?" said one of them that far overweaned his own worth, and rated himself above the market. "In all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me," saith guilty Ephraim; "that were sin," Hos 12:8 that were a foul business to find iniquity in Ephraim, whose iniquities were (yet) grown over his head, as appears throughout that whole prophecy. That man of sin, the Pope, will needs be held sinless, and sundry of his votaries say they can supererogate. And are there not among us, even among us, such sinners before the Lord, that stand upon their pantofles, and proudly ask, Who can say, black is their eye? There is a generation of these, that is, a continual succession of them. Such dust-heaps you may find in every corner.
And yet is not washed from their filthiness.] Either "of flesh or spirit"; 2Co 7:1 they wallow in sin like swine, and welter in wickedness, which is filth and blood, Isa 4:4 the vomit of a dog, 2Pe 2:22 the excrement of the devil, the superfluity or garbage of naughtiness, and the stinking filth of a pestilent ulcer, as the Greek words a used by St James, Jam 1:21 do signify. The whole world lieth in wickedness, 1Jn 5:19 as a lubber in a lake, as a carcase in its slime. Nil mundum in mundo; and yet who so forward to boast of their good hearts to Godward?
a περισσεια, ρυπαρια .