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litotratti
anonymous letters of mysterious import were found in the street and
brought to Diodati. Regarding these letters as forecasting imminent
danger, he
arms .
"made a great stir in the city about them, saying that he had discovered treason
. he
even went from shop to shop in the lower streets, exhorting every one to
. . and, what is worse .
. . broke
that we all had the knife at our throats . . . and
out into a great passion, saying
even preached on the subject."
This conduct on his part caused him to be cited before the Council,
as a disturber of the peace and a busybody in other men's affairs. But the
Venerable Company of Pastors took up the defence of their over-zealous
brother, thus accused of " a seditious patriotism, and the matter was
quieted."^
After the death of Henri IV. he was appointed to visit the Protestants
of France in behalf of his native city ; and succeeded in his mission.
But one of the chief marks of distinction received by our Genevese
divine was his appointment, in 1 6 18-19, jointly with Tronchin, to represent
Geneva at the Synod of Dort. Here he comes before us in a new light.
There had been doubt about inviting any delegates from the chief seat of
Calvinistic doctrine, to avoid an appearance of partiality in calling them
to take part in judging of the orthodoxy of the Remonstrants ;
nor
could
there have been chosen, apparently, two men less disposed to any com-
promise in matters of theological opinion than Diodati and his colleague.
Neither that tenderness of sympathy for errorists, nor that broader mental
habit of discrimination between the essential and the unessential, which we
have reason to suppose belonged to Diodati by nature, as well as through
the influence of his special training in Biblical study, seems to have pre-
served him from a certain hardness of resistance to the plea for toleration,
'' Lettres Trouvfees. Pages historiques sur un Episode de la vie de Jean Diodati. Geneve, 1864.