John Calvin on New Testament Proofs of the Credibility of Scripture

"When we proceed to the New Testament, how solid are the pillars by which its truth is supported!  Three evangelists give a narrative in a mean and humble style.  The proud often eye this simplicity with disdain, because they attend not to the principal head of doctrine; for from these they might easily infer that these evangelists treat of heavenly mysteries beyond the capacity of man.  Those who have the least particle of candor must be ashamed of their [fussiness] when they read the first chapter of Luke.  Even our Savior's discourses, of which a summary is given by these three evangelists, ought to prevent everyone from treating their writings with contempt.  John, again, fulminating in majesty, strikes down more powerfully than any thunderbolt the petulance of those who refuse to submit to the obedience of faith.  Let all those acute sensors, whose highest pleasure it is to banish a reverential regard of Scripture from their own and other men's hearts, come forward; let them read the Gospel of John, and, willing or unwilling, they will find a thousand sentences which will at least arouse them from their sloth; no, which will burn into their consciences as with a hot iron, and check their derision.  The same thing may be said of Peter and Paul, whose writings, though the greater part read them blindfold, exhibit a heavenly majesty, which in a manner binds and rivets every reader.  But one circumstance, sufficient of itself to exalt their doctrine above the world, is, that Matthew, who was formerly fixed down to his money-table, Peter and John who were employed with their little boats, being all rude and illiterate, had never learned in any human school that which they delivered to others.  Paul, moreover, who had not only been an avowed but a cruel and bloody foe, being changed into a new man, shows, by the sudden and unhoped-for change, that a heavenly power had compelled him to preach the doctrine which once he destroyed.  Let those dogs deny that the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, or, if not, let them refuse credit to the history, still the very circumstances proclaim that the Holy Spirit must have been the teacher of those who, formerly contemptible among the people, all of a sudden began to discourse so magnificently of heavenly mysteries" (John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion).