The irritated council summoned Farel before them on the 30th of July. 'Sirs,' said the reformer, 'you have yourselves acknowledged that whatever cannot be proved by Scripture ought to be suppressed; why then do you delay doing so? Were not the defenders of popery vanquished in our debates? And has not almost the whole city recognized the finger of God in this signal defeat of the papacy? Give us orders which we can obey, for fear we should be constrained to answer you with Scripture, that _it is better to obey God rather than men_. Assemble the Council of Two Hundred and let them decide.' The syndics, knowing that the friends of Reform had a majority in that assembly, refused the demand, and repeated their prohibition to Farel, adding: _For good reasons_. Farel thought their reasons bad. In such a matter he knew but one really good: _Preach the Gospel to every creature_, the Lord had said. He set no bounds either to his desire for the triumph of the truth, or to his expectation of help from God to give him the victory. A holy ambition that would not be straitened, animated him, and according to the words of Elisha, he _smote five or six times_ until the enemy was vanquished. Farel was one of those men whom God raises up for great and salutary revolutions: opposition only served to inflame his courage. [Sidenote: FAREL AT SAINT-GERVAIS.] On the 1st of August he went to Saint-Gervais, where the friends of the Reform were numerous. The uneasy syndics sent a guard of fifty men; but Farel went into the pulpit and preached in the old church the ever new Gospel of Jesus Christ. On the 5th of August he became still bolder, and proclaimed the anti-Roman doctrine in the church dedicated to St. Dominic, the father of the Inquisition. This evangelist did not perform his office at his own time only and according to his own convenience: he never spared himself, whatever were the vexations he gathered from his labors. He summoned weary souls to rest at the feet of Christ; he followed up the obstinate; he argued, reproved, entreated, exhorted. He multiplied the inducements to make the dilatory enter upon the way of life, and 'his vehemence was always tempered with meekness.' The hour had arrived when divine truth was to triumph over human errors; he therefore multiplied his attacks. The greatest blow yet remained to be struck. A thunder-clap was about to bring down an abundant rain upon the thirsty earth, and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost which cometh from heaven.[560]