The second part of The nonconformists plea for peace being an account of their…

§. 27. Ecclesiastical Laws must be charitable and easy, and when they are not, they oblige not. P. 316. When the Ecclesiastical Law is indicted by the spiritual power, the Civil power only consenting and establishing the Canon, that Corroboration adds no other band to the Canon, than that it be obeyed according to the intention of the spiritual power; only so it becomes a Law indeed; but it is a Law only as the Church can intend a Law, or desire it to be imposed; that is, what the Church might reasonably persuade, and fitly enjoin, so much ⟨p. 100⟩and no more, in that manner and no other, the Civil power doth corroborate it—It must be such as is fit to be persuaded: such which men can be WILLING to, and easy under, and of which they shall have no cause to complain: For the Church in these things hath no Power but to exhort and persuade, and therefore can enjoin nothing, but what can be reasonably persuaded; she must not by the aid of the temporal power enjoin those things which are cruel and vexatious, and such to which no argument but FEAR can make the subject willing^*— When she makes judgments, she meddles not with blood—and when she is admitted to a Legislative, she enjoins an easy and gentle yoke, And when she does not, the Subject is concerned to avoid the temporal evil threatened by the Civil power, but not to give obedience to the intolerable Law of the Church as in that capacity. For unless the Law of the Church be such that good men may willingly obey it, it cannot be enjoined by the Church; and the Church ought not to desire the Civil power to do it for her. For since she hath no power to command in such things where the Divine authority doth not intervene, all the rest is but PERSUASION; and he that hath power ONLY TO PERSUADE cannot be supposed to persuade against our wills: and therefore matters of intolerable burden are not the matter of Ecclesiastical Laws, because they are certainly against the will of all men, who can serve God and go to heaven without them.

§. 27. Ecclesiastical Laws must be charitable and easie, and when they are not, they oblige not. P. 316. When the Ecclesiastical Law is indicted by the spiritual power, the Civil power only consenting and establishing the Canon, that Corroboration adds no other band to the Canon, than that it be obeyed according to the intention of the spiritual power; only so it becomes a Law indeed; but it is a Law only as the Church can intend a Law, or desire it to be imposed; that is, what the Church might reasonably perswade, and fitly enjoyn, so much