Note 384 — CCCI.—To the Seigneurs of Geneva.[384]

On the back, in the handwriting of Calvin: "The case against Trolliet."

Trolliet, of Geneva, a discontented and unsettled spirit, became, first of all, a hermit in Burgundy, and lived in affectation of sanctity. Soon tired, however, of playing this part, he re-appeared at Geneva, and solicited the functions of the ministry, from which he was warned off by the influence of Calvin, against whom he vowed an irreconcilable hatred. Thenceforward, he made himself remarkable in the ranks of the libertine party, by the violence of his attacks against the Reformer. He arraigned his writings, and offered to prove, that in the book of The Christian Institution, Calvin had made God the author of sin. These accusations, emulously repeated by the adversaries of the Reformer, and speciously tricked up with the authority of Melanchthon, provoked sharp discussions, which were only half appeased by the sentence of the Seigneurs of Geneva, who approved the Christian Institution, while at the same time declaring Trolliet, "homme de bien," out of consideration for the party to which he belonged. The whole of the papers relating to the controversy of Calvin with Trolliet, are to be found collected in Vol. 145 of the MSS. of the Library of Geneva.