Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

Hfotrati
importance attaching to it. Between himself and Sarpi (of whom he says,
evidently with impatience, that his
" incomparable learning was diluted by such a scrupulous prudence, and so little
enlivened and sharpened by fervor of spirit, although accompanied by a very upright
and wholly exemplary life,"
that he judged him incapable of any boldness of action, to effect an
entrance for the truth) there would appear to have been little affinity of
spirit. Yet his enterprise and courage were not the fruit of inconsiderate
self-confidence.
" I shall be very careful," he wrote to Du Plessis Mornay, in France, with respect
to his plans for Venice, " not to oppose a barrier to the very free operation of the
Divine Spirit, either by the consideration of my own incapacity, or by apprehension
of any danger. I am sure that God, who beyond my hopes and aspirations used me
in the matter of His Scriptures, so opportunely for this great work, with happy
success, as the judgments of diverse distinguished persons, and your own among
others, lead me to believe, will also give me a mouth, and power and wisdom, if need
be, to serve in these parts for the advancement of His kingdom, and the destruction
of great Babylon."'"
In the year 1608 Jean Diodati was first formally consecrated to the
Christian ministry. For this, there is reason to believe, he was especially
fitted.
"His eloquent voice," it has been said by a French writer, "his impressive
delivery, and his profound convictions, produced such an effect on his numerous
hearers that they were strengthened in their belief, corrected in their conduct,
renovated. in their sentiments."
But let us hear, on the other hand, with what genuine modesty he
assumed the responsibility of a preacher of the gospel.
" De Bude's Vic de Jean Diodati, ut supra, p. 85.
386