5. O _beware of_ these _false prophets_! For though they _come in sheeps cloathing_, yet _inwardly they are ravening wolves_. They only destroy and devour the flock: they tear them in pieces, if there is none to help them. They will not, cannot lead you in the way to heaven. How should they? When they know it not themselves. O beware they do not turn you out of the way, and cause you to _lose what you have wrought_. 6. But perhaps you will ask, If there is such danger in hearing them, ought I to hear them at all? It is a weighty question, such as deserves the deepest consideration, and ought not to be answered, but upon the calmest thought, the most deliberate reflection. For many years, I have been almost afraid, to speak at all concerning it, being unable to determine one way or the other, or to give any judgment upon it. Many reasons there are which readily occur, and incline me to say, “Hear them not.” And yet what our Lord speaks concerning the false prophets of his own times, seems to imply the contrary. _Then spake Jesus unto the multitude and to his disciples, saying, the Scribes and the Pharisees sit in_ Moses’ _seat_, are the ordinary, stated teachers in your church: _all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do. But do not ye after their works; for they say and do not._ Now that these were false prophets in the highest sense, our Lord hath shewn during the whole course of his ministry: as indeed he does in those very words, _they say and do not_. Therefore by their fruits his disciples could not but know them, seeing they were open to the view of all men. Accordingly he warns them again and again, to _beware of_ these _false prophets_. And yet he does not forbid them to hear even these. Nay, he in effect commands them so to do, in those words, _All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do_. For unless they heard them, they could not know, much less _observe whatsoever they bad them do_. Here then our Lord himself gives a plain direction, both to his apostles and the whole multitude, in some circumstances, to hear even false prophets, known and acknowledged so to be. 7. But perhaps it will be said, he only directed to hear them, when they read the scripture to the congregation. I answer, at the same time that they thus read the scripture, they generally expounded it too. And here is no kind of intimation, that they were to hear the one, and not the other also. Nay the very terms, _All things whatsoever they bid you observe_, exclude any such limitation.