Augustine Baker (1575-1641) was an Oxford-educated Englishman who had a spiritual experience that led him to convert to Catholicism and go to Italy to become a Benedictine monk. For many years he traveled back and forth between England and the Continent. He died in England as a victim of the plague. He was a prolific writer and was interested in the topic of scrupulosity.
Now to the end that the following advices may be more clear and distinct we will sort them according to the several grounds from which usually scrupulosity doth proceed; the which are: 1. either internal temptations by suspected sinful thoughts and imaginations; 2. or certain defects, or supposed defects, incurred about external obligations, as saying the office, fasting, &c. In both which cases there is a strong suspicion of sin incurred, and an uncertainty of what heinousness that sin is, from whence follow unquiet examinations, scrupulous confessions often repeated, &c. First, therefore, we will treat of fear and scrupulosity arising from inward temptations by ill imaginations or thoughts, and afterward of the other....
The special kinds of inward temptations which do ordinarily afford matter of fear and scrupulosity to well-minded tender souls are, first, either such ill imaginations or thoughts as rest in the mind alone, without any other outward effect, such are thoughts: 1. of infidelity; 2. of blasphemy; 3. of despair, &c.; or, secondly, such as withal have, or may cause an alteration in the body, such are thoughts of impurity, anger, &c....
And as for the special forenamed temptations a well-minded soul ought to consider that the simple passing of such thoughts or imaginations in the mind is no sin at all, though they should rest there never so long without advertence, but only the giving a deliberate consent unto them. Neither is it in the power of a soul either to prevent or banish them at pleasure, because the imagination is not so subject to reason as that it can be commanded to entertain no images but such as reason will allow, but it is distempered according to the disposition of the humours and spirits in the body....
Her best remedy is quietly to turn her thoughts some other way, and rather neglect than force herself to combat them with contrary thoughts, for by neglecting them the impression that they make in the imagination will be diminished....
Whatsoever the matters or occasions are that cause scrupulosity in tender souls, the bitterness thereof is felt especially in confessing of them, or preparing themselves to such confession. For then it is that all former unsatisfactions recur to their memory, and new examinations are made, and not only all the supposed faults, but also the former examinations and confessions are again examined and confessed; for to such souls, partly out of ignorance in the nature, degrees, and circumstances of sins, and partly having their minds darkened by fear, all sins appear to them to be mortal, or for ought they know they may be mortal, and that suspicion, or even possibility, is sufficient to pierce them through with grief and fear....
Let, therefore, fearful souls that are forbidden the usual ways of curious examinations of conscience and nice confessions, whensoever any scruple or suspicion concerning a mortal sin comes into their minds that would urge them to run for ease to confession, or that would affright them from communicating, -- let them, I say, content themselves with asking their own consciences in one glance of their minds: Do I certainly know the matter of this fear to have been a mortal sin, and that it was really committed, and never confessed in any sort, defectively or exactly? And if their consciences do not answer that they are most certain of this, they may not only securely judge that they are not guilty, but they are obliged under sin to abstain from confession, in case they have been so commanded.... For it is morally impossible that such tender souls should commit a mortal sin, but without any examination it will appear evidently to be mortal.
...[A] scrupulous person cannot ofttimes give any other reason or account of her fear, but that, for ought she knows, the matter is according to her fear.