Their idols [are] silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
Ver. 4. Their idols are silver and gold] Take them at the best, they are no better; and what is silver and gold but the guts and garbage of the earth? But some of them might say, as Priapus in Horace,
Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum.
Herodotus telleth us, that Amasis had a large laver of gold, wherein both he and his guests used to wash their feet. This vessel he brake and made a god of it; which the Egyptians devoutly worshipped. And the like idolomany is at this day found among Papists; what distinction soever the world would fain make between an idol and an image, which indeed (as they use them) are all one.
The work of men's hands] And therefore they must needs be goodly gods, when made by bunglers especially, as was the cross of Cockram; which, if it were not good enough to make a god, would make an excellent devil, as the mayor of Doncaster merrily told the complainants (Acts and Mon. fol. 1340).