Deuteronomy 13:2,3 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And the sign or wonder come to pass God permitting Satan or his agents to do what is above the ordinary course of nature for thy trial. Saying, Let us go after other gods That is, who, upon the sign's coming to pass which he gave thee to confirm his doctrine, would persuade thee to go after other gods. Thou shalt not hearken unto that prophet Shalt not receive his doctrine; but, though the event confirm the prediction, thou shalt look upon him as a liar, and teacher of false doctrine. For the Lord your God proveth you That is, trieth your faith, love, and obedience, and examineth your sincerity by your constancy in his service, in opposition to all temptations to desert it. To know Or make known publicly and openly, namely, that both you and others may know and see it, in order that the justice of his dispensations toward you, whether in judgment or mercy, may be evident and glorious. The reasonableness of what Moses here enjoins is manifest. For the existence and infinite perfections of the one living and true God, the truth and goodness of his religion, and the authority of his laws being already so fully demonstrated by evidences of all kinds, evidences continued, and beyond all exception; and, on the contrary, the gods of the heathen being so evidently either nonentities or false pretenders to divinity, and their worship so full of absurdity, folly, and the worst kinds of wickedness, it was not to be thought that a mere miracle, or a number of miracles or wonders, for the performance of which, if really performed, they could not account, or the fulfilling of a prediction, by any opposer of the true God, was a sufficient reason why they should abandon God's worship, call in question the truth of his religion, or go after any other god. Moses properly teaches them that the true divinity of miracles and wonders ought to be judged of by the doctrines, designs, and purposes, for the abetting and confirming whereof they were wrought; that every pretender to miracles, who would seduce men to false and irrational principles of religion, was to be looked upon as an impostor, and notwithstanding all he could do or say, they were steadily to adhere to the service of Him who had given them so many proofs that he, and he alone, was the true God, and to his religion and worship, which had been so amply confirmed; concluding that God, by permitting such impostors, intended only to try their faith and sincerity. Compare 1 Corinthians 12:3; 1 John 4:1-6. We may infer from hence, that the attempts of the Roman Catholics to prove their peculiar doctrines by miracles are vain; for they ought first to show them to be agreeable to reason and religion, before they attempt to prove them by miracles. For so long as they appear contrary to reason and Scripture, and repugnant to common sense, it will never be in the power of miracles, how numerous and stupendous soever, to establish the truth of them. Far less of their pretended miracles, which are nothing else but mere tricks and impostures.