242 PART n. ch. vm. — sin.
his actual sins ; and he here humbles himself still more completely before God by acknowledging his innate, hereditary depravity ; a depravity which he did not regard as a mere weakness, or inclination to evil, but which he pronounces iniquity and sin. To this inherent, hereditary corruption he refers in the subsequent parts of the Psalm as his chief burden from which he most earnestly desired to be delivered. " Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts ; and in the hidden part shalt thou make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean ; wash me,
and I shall be whiter than snow Create in me a clean heart,
O God, and renew a right spirit within me." It was his inward parts, his interior nature, which had been shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, which he prayed might be purified and renewed. The whole spirit of this Psalm and the connection in which the words of the fifth verse occur, have constrained the great majority of commentators and readers of the Scripture to recognize in this passage a direct affirmation of the doctrine of original sin. Of course no doctrine rests on any one isolated passage. What is taugiit in one place is sure to be assumed or asserted in other places. What David says of himself as born in sin is confirmed by other representations of Scripture, wliicli show that what was true of him is no less true of all mankind. Thus (Job xiv. 4), " Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean." (xv. 14), " What is man that he should be clean ? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous ? " Thus also our Lord says (John iii. 6), "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." This clearly means that, That which is born of corrupt parents is itself cor- rupt ; and is corrupt in virtue of its descent or derivation. This is plain, (1.) From the common usage of the word flesh in a religious sense in the Scriptures. Besides the primary and sec- ondary meanings of the word it is familiarly used in the Bible to designate our fallen and corrupt nature. Hence to be " in the flesh " is to be in a natural, unrenewed state ; the woi-ks of the flesh, are works springing from a corrupt nature ; to walk after the flesh, is to live under the controlling influence of a sinful nature. Hence to be carnal, or carnally minded, is to be corrupt, or, as Paul explains it, sold under, a slave to sin. (2.) Because the flesh is here opposed to the Spirit. " That which is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." As the latter member of this verse undoubtedly means that, That which is derived from the Holy Spirit is holy, or conformed to the nature of the Holy Spirit; the former member must mean that, Tliat which is