Matthew Poole and continuators on Jeremiah 10:8

8 But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.

The awe, that the Idol doth impress upon carnal mens minds, and thereby taking them off from a due apprehension of the essence of God, doth keep them between such hope, and fear, that they become as senseless, and as inapprehensive of any true worship, as brutes.

Not only some of them, but even all, both Iews and Gentiles, q. d. I need not stand to particularize, but take them all together they are become stupid Idolaters, and have drunk in the most gross superstitions of the Gentiles, as Rom. 1.19, 21.

A Synecdoche put for all sorts of Idols of what materials soever; and a metonymy of the matter, to render them contemptible, either as deluding the ignorant. Or in themselves considered, they are meer vain, foolish, helpless things.

The Hebrew word Musar is taken for bad instruction, Prov. 16.22. q. d. It is an easie matter to prove them very fools and brutish, when they look upon a stock, a piece of wood to be their God, which hath neither knowledge, nor Providence, and therfore must needs be a doctrine of vanity, when they think to be taught devotion by images, which is a teacher of lies, that saith to the dumb stone it shall teach, Hab. 2.18, 19. like that doctrine of D[illegible: 1 letter]vils first broached by Pope Gregory, who first commended Se[illegible: 1 letter]e[illegible: 1 letter]us Bishop of Massilia for not permitting Images to be worshipped, but reproved him for throwing them out of the Church, because they serve for Ornaments, and Lay mens Books, which since hath been received as a Catholick Doctrine, that Images are Lay-mens-Books.

Marginal references: Heb. in one, or at once.; Psal. 115.8. Isa. 41.29. Hab. 2.18. Zech. 10.2. Rom. 1.21, 22▪