This principle is clearly laid down both by Moses and by St. Paul. If a man pretended to be a prophet, he was to predict some definite event that should take place at some definite time, at no unreasonable distance: and if it were not fulfilled, he was to be punished as an impostor. But if he accompanied his prophecy with any doctrine subversive of the exclusive Deity and adorability of the one God of heaven and earth, or any seduction to a breach of God's commandments, he was to be put to death at once, all other proof of his guilt and imposture being superfluous. [10] So St. Paul. If any man preach another Gospel, though he should work all miracles, though he had the appearance and evinced the superhuman powers of an angel from heaven--he was at once, in contempt of all imaginable sensuous miracles, to be holden accursed. [11] Ib. s. xviii. p. 225. And now for any danger to men's persons for suffering such a doctrine, this I shall say, that if they who do it are not formally guilty of idolatry, there is no danger that they whom they persuade to it, should be guilty ... When they believe it to be no idolatry, then their so believing it is sufficient security from that crime, which hath so great a tincture and residency in the will, that from thence only it hath its being criminal. Will not this argument justify all idolaters? For surely they believe themselves worshippers either of the Supreme Being under a permitted form, or of some son of God (as Apollo) to whom he has delegated such and such powers. If this be the case, there is no such crime as idolatry: yet the second commandment expressly makes the worshipping of God in or before a visual image of him not only idolatry, but the most hateful species of it. Now do they not worship God in the visible form of bread, and prostrate themselves before pictures of the Trinity? Are we so mad as to suppose that the pious heathens thought the statue of Jupiter, Jove himself? No; and yet these heathens were idolaters. But there was no such being as Jupiter. No! Was there no King of Kings and Lord of Lords; and does the name Jove instead of Jehovah (perhaps the same word too) make the difference? Were Marcus Antoninus and Epictetus idolaters? UNUM NECESSARIUM; OR THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF REPENTANCE.