the flesh will in such case more or less resume its power) that many good works will not be done by those under it. They may abound. So that in saying that there has been a work of Satan I am not saying there are not many very dear children of God, I am not saying that they do not hold many all-important fundamental truths, as truths, nor that they may not be doing a great many good works. All this will be fully found in the system of Popery, for example, as it was in the Galatians, the earliest form perhaps of that amazing and deluding system.
But there is a further point which it is right to notice. Truly godly people may be the instruments of helping on a system which is truly Satan’s. No one can doubt that Cyprian, who laid down his life for Christ’s name, that Augustine, that Bernard, were godly men. Yet, though one opposed Rome episcopally, and the last declared Antichrist was risen there, no one can doubt that they helped on most eminently Satan’s work in Popery. They did not perceive the bearing of certain points on the meaning and testimony of the Spirit of God.
Further, I do not call every evil I find a direct and positive work of Satan. Of course his hand is there. A saint I call a work of God, though Satan may mar it. Thus I believe there are serious defects and faults in the Establishment, but I believe it to have been a work of God, marred and spoiled by human considerations, which led these who framed it, to adapt it to circumstances and to the then state of the population, and to introduce principles which lay it now open perhaps to that work of Satan which is commonly called Puseyism. In that too itself, I dare say, several good men are labouring, because they do not by spiritual power discern Satan’s craft, who has a lovely religion for the flesh, a religion fairer to men’s judgment and loveliest natural feelings than God’s, which acts entirely on the conscience, and gives all glory to Christ. So with dissenters, I believe that was a work of God; with many defects I judge, but still a work of God. And so of others. But Popery and Puseyism are the work of the enemy, though you may, and doubtless would, find many dear persons among
