Date: 1604

"[W]e know not how soone our Lord and master will call us to a reckoninge and therefore it behoveth us to have our accompts alwayes perfect and the bookes of our consciences made up in readinesse."

— Downham, John (1571-1652)

Date: April 18, 1619

"when thy book (the history of thy life,) is torn, 1000. sins of thine own torn out of thy memory, wilt thou then present thy self thus defac'd and mangled to almighty God?"

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1621

" It was (as I said) once well agreeing with reason, and there was an excellent consent and harmony between them, but that is now dissolved, they often jar, reason is overborne by passion: Fertur equis auriga, nec audit currus habenas, as so many wild horses run away with a chariot, and will not ...

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1623

"[Conscience is a book] euen in thine owne bosome, written by the finger of God, in such plaine Characters, and so legible, that though thou knowest not a letter in any other booke, yet thou maist reade this"

— Carpenter, Richard (1575-1627)

Date: 1623

Conscience is "a noble and divine power and faculty, planted of God in the substance of a mans soule, working upon it selfe by reflection, and taking exact notice, as a Scribe or Register, and determingin Gods Viceroy and deputy, Judge of all that is in the mind, will, affections, actions, and th...

— Carpenter, Richard (1575-1627)

Date: 1623

"[C]onscience, as a Scribe or Notary, sitting in the closet of mans heart, with pen in hand, records and keepes a Catalogue, or Diary of all our Doings, of the time when, place where, the manner how they were performed, adn that so cleere and evident, that goe where we will, doe what we can, the ...

— Carpenter, Richard (1575-1627)

Date: 1628

The young soul is likened to "a white paper unscribled with observations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurr'd Note-booke"

— Earle, John (1601-1665)

Date: 1633

"The mind, you know is like a Table-Book"

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1651

"The agent is a doctor or teacher, the passive a scholar; and his office is to keep and further judge of such things as are committed to his charge; as a bare and rased table at first, capable of all forms and notions."

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1660, 1676

"According to S. Bernard, ... 'we shall be judged by that which is written in our own books,' (the books of conscience), 'and therefore they ought to be written according to the copy of the book of life; and if they not be so written, yet they ought to be so corrected."

— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)