THE RAT— TRAP: OR, The Jesvites taken in their own Net, &c.  
Discovered in this year of Jubilee, or Deliverance from the Romish faction; 1641.  
Imprinted 1641.   

The Rat-Trap: OR, The Jesuites taken in their own Net, &c.  
THe first institution of the Jesuitical Order, was by the Father of that Sect Ignatius Loyola, not granted at the beginning thereof without great pretence of Sanctity, and religious piety, as professing and protesting to imitate Jesus himself (whose cognizance they seem to carry) both in his Life and Doctrine: But these Wolves having crept into the Church in sheep's clothing, and admitted into the flock, not able to bridle or restrain their bloody and savage natures, have not only prayed upon them whom they pretended to protect, but also by insinuating into the humours and dispositions of the most powerful Potentates, have insidiated both their lives and fortunes, as by divers pregnent, (but prodigious) demonstrations may appear: being grown to be the most cunning Engineers, politic underminers, subtle supplanters, and dangerous incendiaries of any order, quality, or condition, or any faction spiritual or temporal whatsoever.  
Of whom to make a more general discovery: They first, screw themselves into the hearts and thoughts of Princes, vilifying unto them all other Sects and Orders, the better to prefer and dignify their own; by which crafty means they have inpatronized themselves into the best abbeys, Monasteries, and other cloistered and sequestered places of Religion; and by the supplantation of others interessed, and inherited themselves: by which means growing rich and eminent, they may the better manage all their politic proceedings; the manner whereof followeth.  
In Rome lives their Father general, to whom the inferior sort (Called his assistance) tender due obedience, and these are employed through all the parts of Christendom, and bear the names of the places in which they reside, as the assistance of Spain, of France, of Italy, England, &c. who by means of their correspondents, who disperse themselves into the principal Cities of that Province, first inform themselves of the state, condition, and quality of that kingdom, and inform the assistants of all passages and occurrants, of which they give notice to the Father general at Rome, who curiously examining them, and conferring them together, at last conclude to favour the affairs of one Prince, and depress the designs of another, as shall best correspond with their own pleasure; and profit, being most preposterous and almost against Reason, that these pure Professors, should only intend, and interest themselves in matters of State, for rain from their Oath and Order, and in the mean time carelessly neglect both the saving of their own souls, and others committed to their charge, for which the foundation of their society, and brotherhood, was at the first authorised.  
It is apparent to all men, that they are Confessors to the greatest part of the Nobility through all the Roman Catholic estates, not without great prejudice to the Princes themselves) to which office they were also to them admitted, by which they penetrate into every design and purpose, of which they give intelligence to their further general; and as secrecy is the sole preservation of a State, without which it is not able to subsist; and that Princes themselves punish with the greatest vigour such as discover their counsels (as the greatest enemies both to their own Principality, and the safety of their kingdom) yet the Jesuits by their Confessions, and Consultations, which their correspondents have, being planted in the chief Cities of the Christian world, are sincerely, and punctually advertised of all determinations concluded in their most secret Cabinets and Closets; so that they better know the power, possessions, expenses, and private projects of Princes, than themselves, suppressing or advancing their affairs at their pleasures; which they may easily do, by reason that by their auricular Confessions, they penetrate even to the very secrets of their souls; by which means the secrets of State being discovered, breeds sometimes a jealousy in Princes of, their best and most faithful Servants, and Officers, not without the great prejudice both of the King and Subject, and endangering the whole state of the kingdom.  
And to continue their stratagems, the better these Jesuitical machiavels distinguish themselves into four ranks or degrees: the first consists of secular or lay-people, who are joined to their fraternity, and submit themselves wholly to their power and patronage; and these are for the most part of the prime Gentry, of both Sexes, wealthy widows, Citizens, and Merchants; from whom by their flattery and insinuations they draw rich donatives, persuading from some annual pensions; and others to forsake the world, and leave all their revenues, moveables, coin, and jewels, to enrich their ingurgitating Monasteries, persuading them that it will prove meritorious for the health of their souls, whilst they with these profits; Feast, and fat their own bodies. A second sort consists of men only, and these as well of Priests, as laymen; such as profess a sequestered, life and retired, capable of Church preferments, but with a vow to take upon them the habit, whensoever it shall please the Father general to call them unto it; and such are called Jesuits in voto.  
The third are those that live in cloisters and Monasteries, and these are either Priests, clerks, or Converts, who because they were not original of that profession, may by the authority of the Father general, be deprived and degraded (though they before have tied themselves to keep it by oath) and these not being as yet called to Office, are subject in all things to the superintendents command. The fourth, are the prime politic Jesuits, through whose hands passeth all the government of Religion, who labour to reduce their society to an absolute Monarchy, and to plant and settle the head thereof in Rome, (where all the affairs of the Christian world meet together) as in a centre, that being also the seat of the Father general, and divers of his agents, who are daily admitted into the houses of Embissadors and Courts of Cardinals; by which means they preoccupate the affairs of foreign Princes; that notwithstanding the importunity of their ambassadors and agents, nothing can be there determined, or concluded of, which stands not with their pleasure, and redounds not to their profit; by which they are grown to that pride and arrogancy, that they have publicly boasted, that they can make Cardinals, Nuntioes'; and in temporal affairs, Lieutenants, Praefects, and Governors; that their general in these times have more power than the Pope himself; adding, that it is better, and much more noble to make Cardinals, than to be a Cardinal.  
And for their avarice, and greedy accumulating of wealth and riches, they are so far from obeying the Cannon which enjoins them to humility, integrity, and austerity of life: but they engage themselves into all temporal affairs, to the great distaste and detriment of most of the Romish Kings and Princes; and further, make merchandise of pearls, Rubies, Emeralds, Diamonds, and all stones of estimation and value, which they trade in from the Indies, and else where, that there is an opinion through Italy, that the greatest part of them that are sold in Venice are the proper goods and commodities of those Jesuits, the ground of which opinion hath been received from their own Brokers, who have had the sale of them. But to rip up all their jugglings, legerdemaines, stratagemeticall plots, and combustions in state, which would ask a voluminous Tract, I shall entreat the Reader to satisfy himself for the present with this compendious and brief Preface: only my purpose being in the next place to discover them not only for bloody Butchers, but most rigorous regicides; their damnable plots and practices, (deserving the hatred and detestation of all men) which I shall strive to do by some few examples; and if the Tree may be judged of by the fruit, we shall easily see what these Jesuites are.  
To begin with France, Henry the third of that name, after he had for their many murders, and massacres of the Protestants, and withal their insufferable insolence to him, caused the two brother Guises, the Duke and Cardinal to be slain at Chartres; after being reconciled to the Protestant King of Navarre, and marching to beleaguer his rebellious Subjects in Paris, being at a place called St. Clawds, he was most traitorously stabbed with a knife in the bottom of the belly, by a friar of the Order of Jacobin, set on by the Jesuites, of which wound he died the next day following in the midst of his Army.  
And his successor, first King of Navarre, and after of France, for his many noble victories styled Henry the great, having subdued Champagne, and all Picardy, in his return to Paris was stabbed in the face with a knife also, by a young desperate Student, whose name was John chastel, instigated and set on by the former faction; for which preditorious fact he was deservedly torn to pieces with wild horses, the twenty ninth of December, but the King by God's preservation was recovered of that hurt: For which he instituted Knights of the Order of the Holy Ghost, in January, being the year of grace one thousand five hundred ninety five: but this traitorous violence offered him was but the presage of a future, but more fatal disaster.  
For this potent King, the next day after he had seen his Queen most magnificently crowned at St. Denis, upon friday being the fourteenth of May, and in the year 1610. about four of clock in the afternoon, was murdered in his Coach by two stabs with a knife, passing the street called Ferroneny (by one Francis Ravillack born in Angolisme) which happened after he had lived six and fifty years, and one and thirty days, having reigned in Navarre thirty seven years and eleven months, or thereabouts, and in France twenty years, nine months, and thirteen days: but the traitor's death, because it was so remarkable give me leave a little to insist.  
He was by profession a Lawyer; and by the conjecture of all men, was spurred on to perpetrate this horrible act by the Jesuites: though all which he openly confessed was, that what he did was by the instigation of the devil; and his reason, because the King tolerated within his kingdom two Religions; the manner of his death was as followeth, after being racked, and enduring several sorts of torments in prison, he was brought thence in his shirt, with a Torch of two pound weight lighted in his one hand, and the Knife with which he had murdered the King chained to the other, and then set upright in a Dung-cart, the people ready to tear him in pieces, had not the Officers restrained them; thence he was brought to the Scaffold, where he crossed himself, to show he died a Papist: he was next bound to a St. Andrew's cross, and his hand chained to the knife burnt in a furnace of fire and brimstone, yet would confess nothing, only lamentably roared, but by none pitied.  
Then was his flesh pulled off with hot burning pincers, and oil, rosin, pitch and brimstone poured into his wounds, and on his navel clapped a roundle of clay, into which was powered molten lead; at the last his body was torn in pieces with four strong horses, which were not able to pluck his sinewy limbs asunder, till the flesh under his arms and thighs was cut, and then was he totally dismembred, then were his limbs burnt to ashes, and cast into the wind, his goods confiscate to the King, the house in which he was borne utterly demolished, and made even with the earth, never any structure to be built there after, and his father and mother to depart the realm, never more to return upon the penalty of being hanged, and that his brethren, sisters, uncle's, and all of the name, should upon the same forthwith change their names to some other, so that Ravillack should not be so much as spoken thorough the Realm. And so much of this jesuitical arch-traitor to the terrifying of others.  
The like (in the Low Countries) was attempted and committed upon the person of that renowned Protestant Prince William of Nassaw Prince of Orange, where a bloody villain, thorough his own cloak a wainscot door, with a pistol double charged, shot to death in his own palace, confessing at his most torturous death, in the midst of torments, that (saving Ravillacks) wanted example; that he was animated and encited to that bloody facinorous enterprise by the continual instigation of the jesuitical faction.  

The Jesuites plots discovered, which they have been about this ten or eleven years, worse than that of the gunpowder Treason.  
IN the year of Grace, one thousand six hundred twenty nine, at Salamanca an university in Spain (by the consent of their Father general at Rome) there was an assembly of the jesuitical Society, (who called themselves the holy Synod) in which one grave signior, who was the Prolocutor, began as followeth: dear brothers of the most Sacred Order, we being here convented this day (being the birth day of our Father and Founder (of everliving memory) Ignatius Loyalla) it is fit that we consult and determine of some affairs, that may tend to the strengthening of our power, the advance of our reputations, and the enriching of our coffers, (at which there was a general hum thorough the Table) when he proceeded: But as I have proposed you a thing fit to be done, so there aught means to be devised and found, how it may be accomplished: the course itself, of which I have maturely deliberated, and in which I crave the assistance of your counsel, is by setting England and Scotland (Nations that have too long lived in fraternal love and amity) at odds, or to use the Scottish phrase, at Deadly Feud: which best how to bring to pass, I solicit you to deliver you sundry censures.  
All of them unanimously applauding the matter, now began singly to speak their opinions of the manner: saith one, I think it may be done by some new plot & practice of treason: saith another, I suppose rather by sowing some seditious libels amongst them, to make one Nation jealous of the other: a third replied, to invade one of the kingdoms by sea, to which purpose they would solicit the Catholic Princes to join in a solemn combination: but a fourth cut him off and said, I like not these attempts by sea, since the bad success and utter overthrow of the great Armado in Eighty eight, though it had the Pope's blessing along, and was by his holiness styled Invincible. O but, said the prolocutor, the reason of that may be easily given, for the sins of the Land were not then ripe, which since are grown to full maturity: But had it then prevailed, with our pistols and poniards, steelettoes and knives, whips, fire, and faggots, we would have made them taste of that Purgatory here on earth, which they will not believe to have place in any corner of Hell.  
But to leave others, let me now acquaint you with a project of mine own, that I think wants precedent; for policy hath prevailed, where puissance hath been repulsed, and fraud hath entered, where force could not: for Ulysses did more in his Tent, than Ajax did in the field. At this all their ears were pricked up in attention, when he spoke on as followeth; The King of Spain is styled the most Catholic, the King of France the most Christian King, and the King of England is titled, Defender of the Faith, having under his Dominion three kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland; the first Protestants, the second Puritans, the third Papists. Now in this distraction of religions, how easy is it to raise troubles and tumults? Now we have Jesuites in voto, ingenious and active, and fit to be employed in these deep and mystical designs.  
Now if you ask me the manner how? they are to be sent over, and dispersed into the Courts and families of noblemen, and places bought them, or offices in which they may gain the best intelligence, by screwing themselves into the bosoms, as well of the noble as ignoble rank: now if you object and say, this cannot be without charge, and great disbursements of money? I answer, have we not Collectors, Receivers, and Treasurers to that purpose, employed in several parts of Christendom: as M. L. the Goldsmith in Fleetstreet for the parts of Flaunders; M. & D. for France; Mr. borrows for Spain, and others elsewhere? (these of the English Nation only) and them our penetrating and insinuating Agents and Ministers, being so planted and placed near about the Prince, and principal persons of those three kingdoms, they may take their opportunity, and catching occasion by the forelock, find several tools and engines to work with, as to incense the Papists (with whom our Society is most embraced) against the Puritans, and set them and other Separatists against the Papists, and both against the Protestants, to bring in new Innovations into the Churches of England and Scotland, such as we know the most distaste, and can worst digest; to alter their ancient Liturgy, by inserting new additions into their books of Common prayer, and by admitting into Church livings, none but such as can conform themselves to all such tenants as shake hands with the Romish Traditions and Doctrines; and to thrust out of their Benefices, all such as stand stiff for the Reformed Religion, but especially to thrust in Ceremonies (such as they call Superstitions) Altars, and the like, into the Scottish Kirk, which Nation we know to be perverse, obstinate, and impatient of any Innovation or change, especially in their Religion.  
Thus wanting power to conquer their Countries, let it be our practice to undermine and blow up their consciences, ruinating them in their distraction about Religion; for what will not men or women hazard, even goods, lands, nay life itself too for their Religion; for what is more dear or nearer to a Christian than his God and his Religion? what will cause more dissension, than not to have freedom of their Religion? Nay, the very Turk himself will not fear to die, though a pseudomartyr, even by torments or tortures, ere he can be compelled to forsake his Mahomet. Now we knowing the Protestant so constant in his Religion, that he will suffer no alteration, the Papist so self-willed he will brook no reformation, and the Puritan so obstinate he will endure no Innovation, and all these spurred on by our subtle Agents animation: what seditions, what suspicions, what commotions, what combustions are probable to ensue thereof; but by this Incendiary kindled in their kingdoms, Ireland may grow tumultuous, Scotland combustions, and take arms, and England's peace be altogether disturbed and disquieted at least, to the exhausting of their treasure, if not their bloods, to their great detriment, if not their general desolation: and in these jealousies and troubles, to bring in foreign Forces, there would be some hope to attain our ends. Which speech being gravely delivered, was by the rest greatly applauded, and the Assembly dissolved, with a determinate resolution to put all the former projects in speedy practice with an Et caetera.  
But to come near to our own Country, what miraculous deliverances had Queen El●zabeth (of ever blessed memory) from the plots and underminings of those Arch jesuitical Regecides? During her minority, in the reign of her sister, what projects and stratagems were devised to insidiate her life; her sundry commitments and impris●nments? nay, a warrant for her death 〈◊〉 by the Queen, at the animation of 〈…〉 Clergy? Her damage by water, when her barge at a low ebb grated upon the arches of the Bridge, when she was sent a prisoner to the Tower? by fire, when her lodgings were burnt over her head, during her confinement at Woodstock. In the beginning of her reign, what complotting by the Jesuites of Spain, France, and Italy, to supplant her from her true and lawful inheritance, by discharging her Subjects from their loyalty and obedience?  
Troubles also were raised in her Kingdom of Ireland by one Nicolas Saunders, a pestilent traitor, and one of that seditious Order, whose pen and tongue spared not only maliciously to calumniate the Queen herself, but the Lady Anne Bulloyne her mother, who having purchased a consecrated Banner with power Legantine, landed amongst the Rebels, whither was sent also S. Josephus with an army of Italians and Spaniards, to join with the revolted Earl of Desmond, his brother Fitz Morris, and others: but their army was soon distressed, the Earl died wretchedly, and Saunders fell mad, and dies starved in the cliffs of an almost unaccessible mountain. The like machinations were devised against her by Cardinal Allen, Englefield, and Rosse, as also by Doctor Parry, by travel Hispanisied, italianated, and fully jesuitified, who after his return, when the Queen's Majysty vouchsafe him her gracious presence in her garden, came armed with a pistol to have taken away her life, had he not been miraculiously prevented, for which horrible Treason he was soon after drawn hanged and quartered.  
The horrible Treason of the fourteen traitors began in one Savage a Bastard; but Instigate thereunto by two Priests, Gilbert Gifford and one Hudson, and the rest of the conspirators drawn in by Ballard the Priest and Jesuit who with the other guilty of the same treason against her majesties own person, the twentieth of September in Lincoln's Inn fields upon a public Scaffold were hanged and quartered; divers others suffered at Tyburn; the prime of which and of most note, were father Campion, and master Soothwell who during his Imprisonment in the tower writ two excellent poems; the on 〈…〉 led Saint Peter's complaint, the other Magdalen's tears, for seducing her majesty's subjects and denying the supremacy.  
I will conclude all the jesuitical Treasons against her (and those by her own Subjects,) which that as Edward Squire are belonging to the Queen's stable, who being in Spain was persuaded and seduced from his allegiance by one Walpoole a revolted runagate, and entered into the jesuitical order (one of these before named Invato,) who gave a mortiserous confection in a bladder, to poison the pummel of her saddle, who after his return into England attending his opportunity, one day when her Majesty was to take horse, came openly with a smiling countenance in the presence of many, and having pricked the bladder, and wearing a thick tanned glove for his own security, chapped his hand upon the pummel of the saddle, and with a loud and cheerful voice said God save the Queen: but it pleased God out of his merciful providence, to take his word not his meaning; for neither mounting, nor alighting, nor all the way she road, (wearing a thin glove) she once laid her hand upon the pummel? but the Treason being after discovered, he by his own conviction was convicted and condemned.  
To come nearer to the days of royal King James her successor, whose Coronation by reason of the great sickness in and about London then reigning, being deferred, in this Interim two italianated Jesuit Priests whose names were Watson and Clark, lays a plot to surprise the person of King James and Prince Henry, and to compel them to subscribe two things to their own puposticall ends, and further had drawn into this conspiracy Henry Brook, Lord Cobham, and Lord Warden of the Cinque ports. Thomas Lord Gray of Wilton, Sir Walter Raliegh Lord Warden of the Staneries. Sir Griffin Markham, Sir Edward Parham, George Brooke brother to the Lord Cobham and Bartholomew Brooksby: whom these Jesuits had persuaded by their sophistical arguments that the attempt could be no Treason, being done before the King's Coronation, alleging that Saul was not King till he was chosen in Mispeh, though he had been maintained in Ramah by Samuel the Prophet, neither Jeroboam, who in the days of Samuel had been confirmed by the Prophet to reign over Israel till the people made him King upon the foolish answer of Rehoboam, but yet notwithstanding all their syllogistical Flourishers, it was proved unto them (to their costs,) That in England there is no Interregum, because the King never dyeth, and that the Coronation is but a ceremony to show the Prince to the people, for which only there died (which was the King's great mercy) the two jesnits Watson and Clarke, the twenty ninth of November, and George Brookes, upon the first of December next ensuing.  
But that Damnable and diabolical plot of the Gunpowder arch-Treason, exceedeth all precedent or example, the like from the beginning of time not read or heard: hatched in the jesuitical nest of that most bloody Brotherhood, which because it is yearly remembered in every pulpit almost thorough the kingdom, I spare further to aggravate, only to put the reader in mind that no such execrable act could be put in agitation without a Jesuit to prompt and further it: witness Father Garnet an arch provincial Priest of that murder, who as the rest of those conspirators in that satannical Conjuration died the death of a traitor being drawn, hanged, and quartered.  
These are but a few amongst many, and ere I proceed any further, I must entreat the indifferent and unpartial Reader, to take some things necessary into his consideration. First how the adversaries spare not both in their words and writings bitterly to asperse and condemn the severity of the laws, for the cutting of such pestilent and preditorious Malefactors, as if they alone were all conscience and Christianity, libellously traducing them, as if they were like Braccoas (the Legislator amongst the Athenians) writ in blood, pretending ours to be a mere usurped power, no better than Tyranny, whom their bloody and merciless persecutions, they strive to mitigate and extenuat by the countenance and authority of the Church, and apostolical jurisdiction, when Christ himself left as his last Legacy upon earth, his peace amongst them; when the Apostles never assumed to themselves any pontifical state and habit, but were Preachers and teachers of the Word: when all their successors in the Primitive Church were so far from being persecutors, that themselves patiently suffered persecution and martyrdom for the gospel sake: when the papistical prelates of these times; instigated and spurred on by their jesuitical engineers, instead of Prayer, Fasting, Exhortation, Admonition, and pious instruction, deal altogether in Fire and Faggot Daggers, pistols, powder-plots, and the like, excluding all mercy and charity, so they can but add the least Mite to their papal Monarchy.  
When on the contrary our laws stretch no further than to punish runagates and revolters of our own Nation; such as being borne natural subjects renounce their allegiance to their lawful Prince and sovereign, transplanting themselves into other Countries, acknowledging foreign supreams, denying that supremacy of their own natural Liege, refusing to subscribe to the oath of allegiance; and not herewith contented, they most traitorously seek to seduce and alienate the hearts of the subjects from their religion, faith, and obedience, in contempt of the laws, which in duty and conscience by the laws of Nations, they are bound to observe. Nor are these just punishments inflicted upon their capitol delinquencies, without giving them warning to fly and abandon the realm: but upon their peremptory and wilful return in despite of Proclamation, and mere contempt both of prerogative and Parlamentall authority they as it were dare justice, and in their selfe-wild obstinacy thrust themselves into the hands of the hangman, as if they were borne hereditary to the halter.  
For instance, (and which is now at this present in agitation) one John Goodman, a Priest and Jesuite, notwithstanding all former caveats and premonitions, having the liberty of the whole world to retire and solace himself, only he was banished and debared this land nine years since, the entrance into which he knew no less than the forfeiture of his life, with a shameful death annexed, & knowing withal, how hateful the nama of a Romish, Priest, was to all the true and faithful subjects of the kingdom, yet maugre all interdiction & proclamations forbidding the contrary, desperately, (if not madly) exposed himself unto all the penalty and dangers of the law, and being taken, and in the 
* Newgate: and iron shackle on hi● leg  Rat-trap held by the leg, for fear of slipping away, and brought unto his trial, having all the favour that could be shown to a Malefactor in that kind, by his own free and voluntary confession accused and condemned himself, and when judgement must of necessity (as in all such cases) be, and was pronounced against him, yet the King's Majesty out of his great and unbounded clemency & mercy, when he was ready to be drawn to execution, sent him a Reprieve for his life: and since being delivered up unto the high Court of parliament, they, in hope of his reformation, and recantation, have not as yet proceeded against his life; unto whose mercy I leave him, & with whom I conclude this brief Tractate: Desiring with all the Reader to take further into his consideration the lenity of our laws, and the mild proceedings therein to spare Christian blood: when on the contrary, our adversaries with their Corrigidoes and Catchpooles, thirst nothing more after: when no Lay Protestant traveller in Rome or Spain, dares so much as hold argument of his own Faith, or show a book in his own Language, but he shall be hurried into the bloody Inquisition; to endure more tortures and pains than in their own devised purgatory, the miseries and torments whereof, if any would be further satisfied, let them but read the lamentable sufferings of Mr. Lythgow, amply set down in the book of his travels.  
FINIS.