Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one.
We are here led to think, I. Of the original of human life. God is indeed its great original, for he breathed into man the breath of life and in him we live; but we date it from our birth, and thence we must date both its frailty and its pollution. 1. Its frailty: Man, that is born of a woman, is therefore of few days, Job 14:1.
Commenting on Job 14:1-6
Who can bring a clean thing out of an clean?.... Either produce a clean person from an unclean one: it is not to be expected that one, perfectly free from sin, should be generated by, or brought out of, one that is defiled with it; which is the case of all men; the first man, though made upright, sinned, and by sinning defiled himself, and...
A plea in mitigation. The doctrine of original sin was held from the first. "Man is unclean from his birth, how then can God expect perfect cleanness from such a one and deal so severely with me?"