The word _flesh_ refers in Scripture not only outwardly to the body, but includes all that is derived from Adam. As when God says, in Gen. vi.: "My Spirit shall not always strive with men, for they also are flesh;" and Isaiah, chap. xl., "All flesh shall see the Salvation of God,"--that is, it shall be revealed for all men. So we also make confession in our own form of faith, "I believe in the resurrection of the flesh," that is, that men shall rise again. So man uniformly throughout is called flesh, as he lives here in this state of being. The marks of the flesh are carefully recounted, one after another, in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians v., not only the gross carnal works, as lasciviousness, but also the highest and most reckless blasphemies, as idolatry and heresy, which belong not only to the flesh, but to the reason. We must understand, therefore, that man, with his intellectual nature,--and with respect both to that which is inward and that which is outward--that is, the body and spirit,--has the appellation of flesh; and this, because with all his faculties, internal and external, he seeks only that which is carnal, and can serve to gratify the flesh. St. Peter says here, too, that Christ suffered in the _flesh_, while it is certain that His suffering extended further than to the body merely, for His soul suffered the greatest anguish, as is said by the prophet Isaiah. In the same way, also, you are to understand that which follows, in the passage before us: "_Whoever hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin._" For this implies not only such things as the death and the torture of the body, but whatever can work misery to man--whatever he endures through calamity and necessity. For there are many people who are sound in body, and yet inwardly experience much heart-sorrow and anguish. If it comes upon us for Christ's sake, it is serviceable and profitable. For whoever suffers in the flesh (says he) ceases from sin, and therefore the Holy Cross is profitable, that sin may thereby be subdued; since it requires you to mortify lust, envy and hate, and other wickedness. Therefore God has imposed the Holy Cross upon us that He might urge and constrain us to believe, and extend the hand of kindness one to the other. Hereupon it follows: V. 2. _That he henceforth, in the time that still remains for him in the flesh, should live not according to the lusts of men, but the will of God._ We should henceforth, as long as we live, hold the flesh captive through the Cross, and by mortifications, so as to do that which pleases God, and not with the idea that we should or can deserve anything by it. _Not according to the lusts of men_ (says he),--that is, that we should not do that to which we might yet be tempted by others; for we are not to be conformed to this world, as Paul says, Rom. xii. What the world demands of us we must refuse.