Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)

Ductor Dubitantium, or, The Rule of Conscience in all her General Measures Serving as a Great Instrument for the Determination of Cases of Conscience

London

Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston

1660, 1676

"In these men the principles are holy, the instruction perfect, the law remaining, the perswasions uncancelled; but against all this torrent there is a whirlwind of passions, and filthy resolutions, and wilfulness, which corrupt the heart, while as yet the head is uncorrupted in the direct rules of conscience."

17. May be an effect and emanation from a holy Conscience; but conscience in itself may be either good or bad, or it may be good when the heart is not clean, as it is in all the worst men who actually sin against conscience, doing that which conscience forbids them. In these men the principles are holy, the instruction perfect, the law remaining, the perswasions uncancelled; but against all this torrent there is a whirlwind of passions, and filthy resolutions, and wilfulness, which corrupt the heart, while as yet the head is uncorrupted in the direct rules of conscience. But yet sometimes a clean conscience and a clean heart are the same; and a good conscience is taken for holiness, so S. Paul uses the word, holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away have made shipwreck [GREEK], so Clemens Alexandrinus explicates the place, they have by infidelity polluted their divine and holy conscience: but S. Paul seems to argue otherwise, and that they, laying aside a good conscience, fell into infidelity ; their hearts and conscience were first corrupted, and then they turned heretics. But this sense of a good conscience is that which in Mystic Divinity is more properly handled, in which sense also it is sometimes used in law. Idem est conscientiaquod vir bonus intrinsece, said Ungarellus out of Baldus; and from thence Aretine* gathered this conclusion, that if any thing be committed to the conscience of any one, they must stand to his determination, & ab ea appellari non potest ; there lies no appeal, quia vir bonus, pro quo sumitur conscientia, non potest mentiri et falsum dicere vel judicare. A good man, for whom the word conscience is used, cannot lye, or give a false judgment or testimony: of this sort of conscience it is said by Ben Sirach, bonam substantiam habet, cui non est peccatum in conscientia. It is a mans wealth to have no sin in our conscience. But in our present and future discourses, the word conscience is understood in the Philosophical sence, not in the Mystical, that is, not for the conscience as it is invested with the accidents of good or bad, but as it abstracts from both, but is capable of either.
(p. 5)

Liquid::Torrent Weather::Whirlwind

Reading

Taylor, Jeremy. Ductor Dubitantium, or, The Rule of Conscience in all her General Measures Serving as a Great Instrument for the Determination of Cases of Conscience. London: Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston, 1676. <Link to EEBO>

01/12/2010