Seven Characteristics of False Leaders

1. False teachers are men-pleasers. They preach more to please the ear than to profit the heart (Is. 30:10). False teachers handle holy things rather with wit and trifling, rather than with fear and reverence.
2. False teachers are notable in casting dirt, scorn, and reproach upon the persons, names, and credits of Christ's most faithful ambassadors. You take too much state, too much power, too much honor, too much holiness upon you; for what are you more than others, that you take so much upon you?
3. False teachers are venters of the devices and visions of their own heads and hearts. Jer. 14:14: "Then the Lord said unto me—These prophets are telling lies in my name. I did not send them or tell them to speak. I did not give them any messages. They prophesy of visions and revelations they have never seen or heard. They speak foolishness made up in their own lying hearts." "This is my warning to my people," says the Lord Almighty. "Do not listen to these prophets when they prophesy to you, filling you with futile hopes. They are making up everything they say. They do not speak for the Lord!" Jeremiah 23:16.
4. False teachers easily pass over the great and weighty things both of law and gospel, and stand most upon those things that are of the least importance and concern to the souls of men.
5. False teachers cover and color their dangerous principles and soul-deceptions with very fair speeches and plausible pretenses, with high notions and golden expressions. Many in these days are bewitched and deceived by the magnificent words, lofty strains, and stately terms of deceivers. As strumpets paint their faces, and deck and perfume their beds, the better to allure and deceive simple souls; so false teachers will put a great deal of paint and garnish upon their most dangerous principles and blasphemies, that they may the better deceive and delude poor ignorant souls.
6. False teachers strive more to win over men to their opinions, than to better them in their lives. They busy themselves most about men's heads. Their work is not to better men's hearts, and mend their lives; and in this they are very much like their father the devil, who will spare no pains to gain proselytes.
7. False teachers make merchandise of their followers. "But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping." 2 Peter 2:1-3.

Source: Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices (middle of the 17th century) by Thomas Brooks.