To prove this proposition, I shall show that Paul calls all crimes the works of the flesh.”  “Now, the works of the flesh are manifest, (says he, Gal. v. 19,) which are these:  adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, rivalries, wrath, disputes, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.”  He also describes the conflict between the flesh and the spirit, or mind, in these terms:—­ “For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good, for to will is present with me, but to perform that which is good, I find not, but the evil which I would not, that I do.  For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of my sin in my members.  O wretched man that I am! who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (or this body of death.) And he goes on to observe, “That I, the same man, with my mind serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin.”—­Rom. vii.  “For the flesh desireth against (or in opposition to) the spirit, and the spirit against “the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”

“Those that are Christ’s (says Paul, Gal. v. 24) have crucified the flesh, with its passions and desires.”  And they are commanded (Rom. vi. 12 and viii. 13) “to mortify,” or, according to the original, “put to death or “kill their members;” and Paul himself uses language upon this subject exceeding strong.  He represents (1 Cor. ix. 27) his mind and body as engaged in combat, and says, “I buffet my body, and subject it.”  The word here translated " subject,” in the original, means “to carry into servitude,” and is a term taken from the language of the olympic games where the boxers dragged off the arena, their conquered, disabled, and helpless antagonists like slaves, in which humbled condition the Apostle represents his body to be with respect to his mind.

From this notion of the sinfulness of “the flesh,” we are enabled to apprehend Paul’s reasonings about the sufferings of Jesus “in the flesh.”  “Since the children are partakers of flesh and blood, Christ himself also in like manner partook of them”—­Heb. ii. 14.  “For (says Paul) what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God hath done, who by having sent his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and on account of sin, hath condemned sin in the flesh.”—­Rom. viii. 3.  “But now, through Christ Jesus, ye who formerly were far off, are brought near by the blood of Christ.  For he is our Peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished by his flesh the cause of enmity.”—­Ephes. ii. 16.  “You that were formerly aliens, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet he hath now reconciled by his fleshly body, through his death.”—­Col. i. 20.