John Calvin on the Holy Spirit and the Authority of Scripture

"Let it be held as fixed, that those who are inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit [agree completely] in Scripture; that Scripture carrying its own evidence along with it, [grants] not to submit to proofs and arguments, but owes the full conviction with which we ought to receive it to the testimony of the Spirit.  Enlighten by him, we no longer believe, either on our own judgment or that of others, that the Scriptures are from God; but, in a way superior to human judgment, feel perfectly assured - as much so as if we beheld the divine image visibly impressed on it - that it came to us, by the instrumentality of men, from the very mouth of God.  We ask not for proofs or probabilities on which to rest our judgment, but we subject our intellect and judgment to it as too transcendent for us to estimate.  This, however, we do, not in the manner in which some are wont to fasten on an unknown object, which, as soon as known, displeases, but because we have a thorough conviction that, in holding it, we hold unassailable truth; not like miserable men, whose minds are enslaved by superstition, but because we feel a divine energy living and breathing in it - an energy by which we are drawn and animated to obey it, willingly indeed, and knowingly, but more vividly and effectually than could be done by human will or knowledge.  Hence, God most justly exclaims by the mouth of Isaiah, 'Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he' (Isa 43:10)" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion).