James 1:14 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

He shows the great cause of sin; that lust hath a greater hand in it than either the devil or his instruments, who cannot make us sin without ourselves: they sometimes tempt, and do not prevail; but when lust tempts, it always prevails, either in whole or in part, it being a degree of sin to be our own tempters. Drawn away; either this notes a degree of sin, the heart's being drawn off from God; or the way whereby lust brings into sin, viz. the impetuousness and violence of its motions in us. Of his own lust; original corruption in its whole latitude, though chiefly with respect to the appetitive faculties. And enticed; either a further degree of sin, enticed by the pleasantness of the object, as represented by our own corruption; or another way of lust's working in us to sin, viz. by the delightfulness and pleasure of its motions: in the former it works by a kind of force, in this by flattery and deceit. It is either a metaphor taken from a fish enticed by a bait, and drawn after it, or rather from a harlot drawing a young man out of the right way, and alluring him with the bait of pleasure to commit folly with her.

James 1:14

14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.