Farel maintained throughout the right and duty of the Christian people to read the Scriptures, to understand them, and to submit to them alone. Furbity, on the contrary, asserted that the Scriptures should be read by the clergy only, and understood conformably with the interpretation of the councils. He proved his point by reasons which might have some force in the eyes of his friends, but they had none for Farel, who maintained the necessity of the immediate contact of each Christian soul with the Scriptures of God. It was not from councils (he contended) nor from popes, but from the Word of God itself that every Christian must receive by faith the truth which saves. The first assembly at Jerusalem (ordinarily termed the first council), was it not, according to the account in the Acts, composed of apostles, elders, and of the _whole church_, and did it not begin its letter with: ‘The apostles and elders and _brethren_’? Defending, therefore, the rights of the lay members of the flock, he declaimed energetically against the institution of all those dignitaries who, in the Romish Church, are _lords over God’s heritage_: ‘You invent all sorts of things,’ he said to the Dominican,[454] ‘you introduce diversities of orders, a countless number of eminences, bishops, prelates, archbishops, primates, cardinals, popes, and other superiorities of which Scripture makes no mention. You do everything to your own fancy, without any regard to God or the right. The apostles took counsel with the whole assembly of the believers, but you ... you do everything, you are everything! ... you cut and shape as you please. The Christian people are no more called by you into council than dogs and brutes. Your ordinances must be adored, and those of God be trodden under foot. Your papal monarchy surpasses all others in pride, pomp, and feasting. You want those who are to teach the people to be princes with lordships, estates, law-courts, and governments. You want to have a rich triumphant Jesus, who shall put to death all who contradict him.... Ah! sirs, the Saviour was not such here below: he was poor, humble, put to death, and his disciples were banished, imprisoned, stoned, and killed.... What similarity is there between the Apostolic Church and yours?... The supreme argument in yours is the executioner.... The apostles did not, like you, fulminate fierce excommunications; they did not, like you, imprison and condemn.... No! Jesus is not in the midst of you. He is in the midst of those who are expelled, beaten, burnt for the Gospel, as the martyrs were in the time of the primitive Church.’ [Sidenote: Farel’s Thunders.]