As for those whose errors and corruptions in religion were not so great, there was some (though not the highest) severity used against them. Moses was so angry with the people that were seduced into idolatry, that he burnt the calf which they had worshipped, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel to drink of it (Exo. 32:20); thereby teaching them to abhor that idolatry, while their idol did pass from them among their own excrements. Asa did remove his mother, Maachah from being Queen, because of an idol which she had made in a grove (1 Ki. 15:13). Josiah caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to the covenant (2 Ch. 34:32), which could not be without either threatening or inflicting punishment upon the transgressors; there being many at that time disaffected to the Reformation.
- George Gillespie, Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty (1644), at http://www.naphtali.com/articles/george-gillespie/wholesome-severity/
