"For the best of reasons, the consent of the church is not without its weight. For it is not to be accounted of no consequence, that, from the first publication of Scripture, so many ages have uniformly concurred in yielding obedience to it, and that, notwithstanding the many extraordinary attempts which Satan and the whole world have made to oppress and overthrow it, or completely face it from the memory of men, it has flourished like the palm tree and continued invincible. Though in old times there was scarcely a sophist or orator of any note who did not exert his powers against it, their efforts proved unavailing. The powers of the earth armed themselves for its destruction, but all their attempts vanished into smoke. When thus powerfully assailed on every side, how could it have resisted if it had trusted only to human aid? No, its divine origin is more completely established by the fact, that when all human wishes were against it, it advanced by its own energy. And that it was not a single city or a single nation that concurred in receiving and embracing it. Its authority was recognized as far and as wide as the world extends - various nations who had nothing else in common entering for this purpose into a holy league. Moreover, while we ought to attach the greatest weight to the agreement of minds so diversified, and in all other things so much at variance with each other - an agreement which a divine providence alone could have produced - it adds no small weight to the whole when we attend to the piety of those who those agree; not of all of them indeed, but of those in whom as lights God was pleased that his church should shine" (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion).
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