James 1:15

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), “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.