THE CONFESSION Of the faithful Witness of Christ, Mr. John Bastwick Doctor of Physic. Wherein he doth declare his Education, and the grounds of his Conversion, and Constancy, in the true profession of FAITH.  
With the Reasons wherefore he became an Adversary to our Bishops, whom he proveth to be the Toes of Antichrist, and dangerous Prelates to abide in our Church  
With a Relation of their great pride, in setting the King's Picture over their Dresser in the High Commission Court, with his hat off, and his Crown and Sceptre laid down before their Worships, like a Delinquent.  
By JOHN BASTWICK Doctor of Physic.   woodcut portrait 
The lively ●ffegies of Mr. johu bastwick. Doctor of Physic, and sufferer under the Prelates.  
London printed, and are to be sold by H. W. 1641.   

The confession of Ma●ster john Bastwick Doctor of PHYSIC.  
I Have heard many Sermons at the Court, yet never did I hear any, wherein I saw not the PURITAN brought up, with one scorn or other, and some notorious lies told of them. So that I wonder not that those poor men are thought so evil of, though a most innocent and harmless people as any lives upon the Earth. For when the place of God itself, from whence truth should only sound, is made a Theatre of lying and false accusations, no wonder that the King's Majesty, and Nobles of the Kingdom, have a prejudicated opinion of them they call Puritans, when they expect nothing but truth and veritable narrations from that place.  
In my younger days (that I may in something relate my own condition) I was bred in as great a hatred of Puritans, as any tender years were capable of, as it is well known, and thought those men not worthy to live, yet knew not any of them, (our Country having then scarce two in it) neither was there a Sermon perhaps in half a year thereabouts, and that read out of a paper book, and half of it commonly was railing against the Puritans. But when it pleased God that some of those, that spoke evillest of them (through surfeiting, and excess had brought themselves to languishing sickness, and after to Death itself) I say, when those men, in their greatest extremities, chose rather to trust them, yea and to prefer them, before their own brethren and nearest kins-folks, and bequeath their children and Estate into their hands, & then being also demanded the reason of such trust, and confidence in them, whom they had reputed the worst of men before, and most of all traduced, & hated, they then openly declared themselves, and their opinion of them, saying that they were now dying men, & that it was now time to speak the truth, and that they in their hearts believed they were the true servants of the Lord, howsoever despised & contemned in the world and withal they desired that their souls might go the way that theirs went.  
I say, when I saw such a wonderful change in these men, who were many of them, of knowledge and understanding in all Religions, and some of them travellers and Courtiers, and that now on their deathbeds, they should give such an approbation, and so honourable testimony of those men, of whom they had in their prosperity spoken so maliciously, I being then of years of discretion, and better able to discern and judge of things that differ, began more seriously to consider of that matter, and so much the more studious I was, because I had in some sort, seen the vanity of all pleasures, having indeed been bred in nothing else. The right way then to find blessedness, was my only aim: which through God's special favour and benediction upon my earnest endeavours, daily reading of the Word and holy Scriptures, private duties, godly society, and frequent hearing of the word, which is only able to save our souls, I found out, to the praise and honour of his name be it spoken. And I then well perceived, looking into the lives and manners of men, that those that were commonly branded with the name of Puritans, were the happiest, and that if any were eternally blessed, they were such of them as squared their lives in sincerity, according to their profession.  
And lest that I might through an overweening conceit of some seeming blessedness in them, be mistaken; I contented not myself with home-comparing of men and domestical experience, but I resolved to seek out still a more excellent way, if there were any; whereupon I went into foreign Nations, and lived amongst all sorts of men, & in the greatest Princes Courts conversing among all ranks and orders of them, and that many years, and amongst all professions, Courtiers, Soldiers, Scholars, Citizens, Merchants, and among all sects, of factions, and religions, & examining all those in the balance of judgement, I found none in life and death happy, and truly comfortable, but those that are branded with the name of Puritans, or at least those that live and die in their Faith. And for my own particular, to speak now my Conscience, I had rather go the way of the meanest Puritans, that live and die according to their profession, then of the greatest Prelates that ever lived upon the earth; & this I speak in the presence of God; for of the ones happiness I am as sure, as the Word of God is sure, & of the others I can promise nothing he living in Rebellion to God all the days of his life, and his Repentance not known unto me.  
And notwithstanding, I say, all this, that these are such an holy people: yet are they made but the offscouring of the world, & of all things, and brought upon every Stage, and into the Pulpit, as fittest for ludibry by the Players, Priests, and Prelates, yea and in their Courts it is enough to ruin a man's cause, if his Adversary can but taint him with the name of a Puritan; but most especially are they vilely abused by the Priests and Prelates in their pulpits.  
Now I say, if it be lawful in them, to make plays of honest men, and to feign what they please against them: I pray let it be lawful in me, in merriment to speak the truth of them, which as near as I can I will not transgress. If some shall say, they have not so great trains nor so much ado in their marching; I affirm, that at all times, they go more like Princes, then humble Ministers of Christ, and the Apostles Successors, of whom we never read, they came ever in Coach or on horseback, but when Paul was mounted by authority; or that they had ever a servant to attend them, much less such pomp and State: and yet one of them converted more souls in one day, than all the Prelates ever did that ever I read off: neither to speak truly have I heard of any they ever converted, but of many thousands they have confounded. But now to the matter in hand, because one o● their abetters said not long since, that they had not such attendance as I accuse them of. I say, if they have less company one day, they have more an other, and whether they be their own or others Servants, when they are in their company, be they the nobles themselves, they are all their attendants, and the best of them most hearty glad if by their service they can please them, and we know it usual that the demonstration of the retinu is always from the greatest, and they are found to be his followers. And I have heard the Pursivants often brag of the greatness of their Master's attendance, and in such ample manner as I think the King's Majesty hath not commonly greater: and therefore that cannot be denied, which is daily practised, And for their servants insolency I have frequently both seen it and felt it. Now whereas you think, it will not be well taken that I call Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, Antichrists little toes; and in my LITANY desire deliverance from them, and withal seem to accuse them of incontinency, all which you think will be censured of unadvisedness at least, if not thought scandalous and punishable.  
To this I answer, first, that By Bishops I understand the Prelates, and by Priests their own creatures, a generation unknown in the Church of Christ: and by Deacons the under Priests in this Kingdom, Officers of which the Scripture knoweth nothing likewise. For the Deacons such as the Churches chose, and were allowed by the Apostles, they were men of gravity, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, men of wisdom and good government and honesty, and were the treasurers of the faithful & the Church of God, and distributed the liberality of the Saints amongst the poor indigent and necessitated brethren. Now I know never a Deacon in England either guilty of any of those virtues before specified. or that was ever employed in that Office, or was thought fit to be trusted, with the treasury of the poor, or took the least care of them, whom ordinarily they trample upon und most reproachfully abuse with the name of rascality. So that such Deacons as I pray against are limbs of the Beast, and the inferior order of shavelings and such as ought to be spewed out of the Church as profitable for nothing but increase of wickedness.  
And for Bishops such as God appointed I honour them, and will maintain their dignity to the last drop of my blood, so far I am from praying against such. Neither did I ever speak unreverently against the King's Bishops and those that were appointed as an order in the State, till they had in their open Court renounced his authority, & run themselves by that, and many other notorious proceed into a Primunire, & so had made themselves enemies to his Prerogative royal, & delinquents against his Majesty, and under his Highness' displeasure, as by the statutes of the Kingdom they are proclaimed to be, and by the defenders of their proceed in their Ecclesiastical Courts: who in a book set forth by their common consent, do conclude all these in a Praemunire, that challenge their authority jure devino, as the Pope and Clergy of Rome, which at this time they do.  
And for your better satisfaction, look in the Apology for proceed in Courts Ecclesiastical (a book made by the Prelates own creatures) and in the first Chapter, you shall see all the Prelates by their own witness in a Praemunire, and delinquents against his Majesty in a high degree of contumacy.  
And truly I think there was never such an affront put upon regal Dignity, as on that day I was censured, never such dishonour put upon the Scriptures, by such as would be thought Ministers of the word, and the Bishops and Pastors of Christ: Neither were the Scriptures ever more blasphemously abused, than they were at that time, in their open assembly, I shall briefly therefore tell you that day's work, of which there are a thousand witnesses, as also impious words against the most sacred word of God and divine Oracles of holy writ, by all which, you will see, I have good reason to call them ANTICHRISTS LITTLE TOES, and to pray against them; for they are as desperately impious, and equally to be detested of all such as truly fear the Lord and the King. For if we compare them together, there will no disparity appear between them, they being every way as malicious against the word of God and his dear servants, and as diametrally opposing regality as Antichrist himself, But that all things may the more clearly be evidenced unto you, let me tell you that days proceed,  
You must take notice, that howsoever, they had feigned some trivial Articles against me, they were all by the general consent of the Court thought so poor, as they openly averred they would not condemn me for them, and so much the rather, because those that had sworn to them, were proved to be my Capital enemies, and also, in their depositions to have sworn point blank one against an other, & like evil wiinesses could not agree in swearing: therefore they condemn me only for my book which I writ in defence of Christ and his Kingdom, and of the Kings most excellent Majesty's prerogative Royal, and supremacy against the Pope and Popish Bishops, provoked thereunto by a Papist; to which duty I was bound both by the law of God and the law of the land, and my special oath, all which I alleged at the bar, and furthermore added that in writing against the Bishop of Rome, I intent no such Bishops as acknowledge their authority from Kings and Emperors, but only such Bishops that usurp authority over Kings and Emperors, aend their fellow brethren and the Church of God jurc divinos and se I had prefeced in my Book, which I openly readt here.  
And to speak the truth, I looked for favour and assistance in this combat, from the Prelates; never suspecting that they would have been my enemies, for this endeavour, especially I having also in that place alleged the Acts & Statutes established by the public consent of the whole Kingdom, in which it was ratified, that the Prelates have all their authority and jurisdiction which they now exercise, from the King, as immediately derived from him, and to affirm the contrary, is to be ipso facto an enemy of his Crown & Dignity. And as the Prelates were an order established by the King & State, I was so far from opposing them, that I never impeached their dignity in the least thing in all the book; neither would I ever have meddled with them, if they had kept their standing; but they like the evil Angels out of pride, not keeping their 1 station, but openly renouncing the King's authority, and affirming, that Jesus Christ made them Bishops, and that the holy Ghost consecrated them, and that they were Princes and had their thrones, and that before Kings, and all this jure divino: by all which, they made me their enemy, they being delinquents against the King. And because I had ratified, what soever I had said in my book by the Word of God; they as they had before renounced the King's authority, and barbarously reviled me for my pains, most impiously, likewise vilified the holy Scripture, saying in their Sessions, that they looked for some great matter in my book, finding me so confident, but more diligently reading of it, they found nothing but Scripture in it, which was the refuge of all Schismatics and Heretics: and that the Scripture could not be known to be Scripture, but by the Fathers, nor distinguished from the Apocrypha, but by the Fathers: nor the meaning of the Scripture could not be known but by the Fathers: and because the Fathers, as they said, were in their interpretation divers from me (which notwithstanding is not so) therefore they condemned me.  
But I pray, are not all these blasphemous, Popish, and Damnable assertions, could worse have b●n forged in the very conclave of hell? Is not this I pray you, to tell the spirit of God to his face he lies, and to teach another way to heaven then by the Scripture; which Christ the Son of God sends us to, and all the Prophets and Apostles, as to the Instructers of the simple, and able to make the man of God wise to salvation, & perfectly furnished to every good work, and the which the holy Ghost compares to a Guide, & a Lantern for direction; and a light to conduct us in this our Pilgrimage & peregrination through the errors of the world, and to keep our feet in the paths of truth, and with the Prelates this great and glorious light; this Scripture must be so obscure, as it must be inferior to all things that have a power in themselves to declare and demonstrate their own nature, as fire to be fire, gold to be gold light to be light. But the Scripture only that cannot be known, but by the help of others, to be the Word of God, it cannot be the word of God without the Fathers, and their Interpretation of them; for the Scriptures themselves they are the only refuge of Schismatics, the cause of all errors, and that that cometh confirmed and proved only from Scripture, is ever to be suspected with the Prelates. O Blasphemy, yea the book that hath nothing but Scripture, must be adjudged to the fire, and the Author of it given over to the Devil, fined 1000 ls, and cenfured to pay the costs of suit, & be debarred of his practice, only support left for the relief of his distressed family, to the utter undoing of him, his poor wife and children, and all this for sooth, because there was nothing but Scripture in it. O horrible Impiety! The truth is, howsoever they seemed to condemn it; because it had nothing but Scripture that was not the occasion, but the very cause was, because I writ against the Pope Father Antichrist, such correspondency there is now between the Pope and the Prelates, that one cannot write against him, but the Prelates say by and by, that they are meant by it. The Grolls.  

IT is worth the looking on, to see the pride of the Prelates, in setting the King's picture over their dresser, in the high Commission Court; for they have placed his Highness standing, with his hat off before their Worships, like a delinquent, his Crown & Soepter laid low, as the poor Emperors and Kings were wout to stand before his impiety, the Pope, when they were cited to his Courts. Of which stories you may read many in King James, his Apology, to go no farther and in this very manner, have they set up the Portraits of our renowned King. And the very intrinsical Marrowbone of the matter is, they trample upon his Imperial dignity, while they seem to honour him, with whom they make themselves in the mean time Ch●ckmates: for they say, they were before Christian Kings, and had their thrones, and that they were not beholding to them for their Honour, and Dignity of Episcopality, for they were Jure Divino, that they were.   
FINIS.