"That is, of that which God hath declared to be good or evil respectively, the conscience is to be informed. God hath taken care that his laws shall be published to all his subjects, he hath written them where they must needs read them, not in Tables of stone or Phylacteries on the forehead, but in a secret Table: The conscience or mind of a man is the [...], the preserver of the Court Rolls of Heaven."

— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by R. Norton for R. Royston
Date
1660, 1676
Metaphor
"That is, of that which God hath declared to be good or evil respectively, the conscience is to be informed. God hath taken care that his laws shall be published to all his subjects, he hath written them where they must needs read them, not in Tables of stone or Phylacteries on the forehead, but in a secret Table: The conscience or mind of a man is the [...], the preserver of the Court Rolls of Heaven."
Metaphor in Context
21. That is, of that which God hath declared to be good or evil respectively, the conscience is to be informed. God hath taken care that his laws shall be published to all his subjects, he hath written them where they must needs read them, not in Tables of stone or Phylacteries on the forehead, but in a secret Table: The conscience or mind of a man is the [GREEK], the preserver of the Court Rolls of Heaven. But I added this clause to the former of [a rule] because the express line of Gods rule is not the adequate measure of conscience: but there are analogies and proportions, and commensurations of things with things, which make the measure full and equal. For he does not always keep a good conscience who keeps only the words of a Divine law, but the proportions also and the reasons of it, the similitudes and correspondences in like instances, are the measures of conscience.
(p. 6)
Provenance
Reading Peter Goodrich's "The New Casuistry." Critical Inquiry 33, no. 4 (Summer 2007): 683. <Link to Critical Inquiry>
Citation
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>
Date of Entry
01/12/2010

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.