(15) Then when lust have conceived. . . .--Then come the downward steps of ruin--Lust, having conceived, bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. The image well depicts the repellent subject. The small beginning, from some vain delight or worldly lust and pleasure; next from the vile embrace, as of an harlot--sin, growing in all its rank luxuriance, until it bear and engender, horribly, of itself, its deadly child. The word of parturition is frightful in the sense it would convey, as of some monstrous deformity, a hideous progeny ten-fold more cursed than its begetter.

The one effect of sin, more especially that of the flesh here alluded to, must be Death. The act itself is mortiferous, the result inevitable; just as much so, and as naturally, as the work of poison on the body. There are antidotes for both, but they must be given in time; the door of mercy stands not always open, nor will the "fountain opened . . . for sin and uncleanness" (Zechariah 13:1) flow on for ever. "Because," says the Wisdom of God (Proverbs 1:24-26), "I have called, and ye refused . . . I also will laugh at your calamity." "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), and their paymaster is the devil.

Verse 15 shows where temptation passes into sin. Ἐπιθυμία, lust, is clearly not in itself "true and proper sin," but it is no less clear that, as our Article IX. says it "hath of itself the nature of sin." With this whole passage we should compare St. Paul's teaching on ἐπιθυμία, ἀμαρτιὰ, and θανατός, in Romans 7:7-11. Ἀποκύειν occurs only here and in ver. 18; translate, gendereth.

1:12-18 It is not every man who suffers, that is blessed; but he who with patience and constancy goes through all difficulties in the way of duty. Afflictions cannot make us miserable, if it be not our own fault. The tried Christian shall be a crowned one. The crown of life is promised to all who have the love of God reigning in their hearts. Every soul that truly loves God, shall have its trials in this world fully recompensed in that world above, where love is made perfect. The commands of God, and the dealings of his providence, try men's hearts, and show the dispositions which prevail in them. But nothing sinful in the heart or conduct can be ascribed to God. He is not the author of the dross, though his fiery trial exposes it. Those who lay the blame of sin, either upon their constitution, or upon their condition in the world, or pretend they cannot keep from sinning, wrong God as if he were the author of sin. Afflictions, as sent by God, are designed to draw out our graces, but not our corruptions. The origin of evil and temptation is in our own hearts. Stop the beginnings of sin, or all the evils that follow must be wholly charged upon us. God has no pleasure in the death of men, as he has no hand in their sin; but both sin and misery are owing to themselves. As the sun is the same in nature and influences, though the earth and clouds, often coming between, make it seem to us to vary, so God is unchangeable, and our changes and shadows are not from any changes or alterations in him. What the sun is in nature, God is in grace, providence, and glory; and infinitely more. As every good gift is from God, so particularly our being born again, and all its holy, happy consequences come from him. A true Christian becomes as different a person from what he was before the renewing influences of Divine grace, as if he were formed over again. We should devote all our faculties to God's service, that we may be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.Then when lust hath conceived,.... A proposal of pleasure or profit being made, agreeable to lust, or the principle of corrupt nature, sinful man is pleased with it; and instead of resisting and rejecting the motion made, he admits of it, and receives it, and cherishes it in his mind; he dallies and plays with it; he dwells upon it in his thoughts, and hides it under his tongue, and in his heart, as a sweet morsel, and forsakes it not, but contrives ways and means how to bring it about; and this is lust's conceiving. The figure is used in Psalm 7:14 on which Kimchi, a Jewish commentator, has this note;

"he (the psalmist) compares the thoughts of the heart "to a conception", and when they go out in word, this is "travail", and in work or act, this is "bringing forth".''

And so it follows here,

it bringeth forth sin; into act, not only by consenting to it, but by performing it:

and sin, when it is finished: being solicited, is agreed to, and actually committed:

bringeth forth death; as the first sin of man brought death into the world, brought a spiritual death, or moral death upon man, subjected him to a corporeal death, and made him liable to an eternal one; so every sin is deserving of death, death is the just wages of it; yea, even the motions of sin work in men to bring forth fruit unto death. Something like these several gradual steps, in which sin proceeds, is observed by the Jews, and expressed in much the like language, in allegorizing the case of Lot, and his two daughters (i);

"the concupiscent soul (or "lust") stirs up the evil figment, and imagines by it, and it cleaves to every evil imagination, "until it conceives a little", and produces in the heart of man the evil thought, and cleaves to it; and as yet it is in his heart, and is not "finished" to do it, until this desire or lust stirs up the strength of the body, first to cleave to the evil figment, and then , "sin is finished"; as it is said, Genesis 19:36.''

(i) Midrash Haneelam in Zohar in Gen. fol. 67. 4.