The customs of the people are vain - חקות chukkoth; the statutes and principles of the science are vain, empty, and illusory. They are founded in nonsense, ignorance, idolatry, and folly.

One cutteth a tree out of the forest - See the notes on Isaiah 40:19 (note), and Isaiah 44:9 (note), etc., which are all parallel places and where this conduct is strongly ridiculed.

deck.

Psalm 115:4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

Psalm 135:15 The idols of the heathen are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.

Isaiah 40:19,20 The workman melts a graven image, and the goldsmith spreads it over with gold, and casts silver chains...

fasten.

Isaiah 41:6 They helped every one his neighbor; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage.

Isaiah 44:12 The smith with the tongs both works in the coals, and fashions it with hammers, and works it with the strength of his arms: yes...

Isaiah 46:7 They bear him on the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place, and he stands; from his place shall he not remove: yes...

Dwight -- the Sovereignty of God
Timothy Dwight was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1752. He graduated from Yale in 1769, served as chaplain in the army during the Revolutionary War and was chosen president of his university in 1795. He died, after holding that office for twelve years, in 1817. Lyman Beecher, who attributed his conversion to him, says: "He was of noble form, with a noble head and body, and had one of the sweetest smiles that ever you saw. When I heard him preach on 'the harvest is passed, the summer is ended, …
Grenville Kleiser—The world's great sermons, Volume 3

Meditations for Household Piety.
1. If thou be called to the government of a family, thou must not hold it sufficient to serve God and live uprightly in thy own person, unless thou cause all under thy charge to do the same with thee. For the performance of this duty God was so well pleased with Abraham, that he would not hide from him his counsel: "For," saith God, "I know him that he will command his sons and his household after him that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

"For if Ye Live after the Flesh, Ye Shall Die; but if Ye through the Spirit do Mortify the Deeds of the Body, Ye Shall Live.
Rom. viii. s 13, 14.--"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." The life and being of many things consists in union,--separate them, and they remain not the same, or they lose their virtue. It is much more thus in Christianity, the power and life of it consists in the union of these things that God hath conjoined, so that if any man pretend to …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning