John Calvin on the Spirit and the Word

"There is nothing repugnant here to what was lately said (c. 7) that we have no great certainty of the word itself, until it be confirmed by the testimony of the Spirit.  For the Lord has so knit together the certainty of his word and his Spirit, that our minds are duly imbued with reverence for the word when the Spirit shining upon it enables us there to behold the face of God; and, on the other hand, we embrace the Spirit with no danger of delusion when we recognize him in his image, that is, in his word.  Thus, indeed, it is.  God did not produce his word before men for the sake of sudden display, intending to abolish it the moment the Spirit should arrive; but he employed the same Spirit, by whose agency he had administered the word, to complete his work by the [efficient] confirmation of the word.  In this way Christ explained to the two disciples (Luke 24:27), not that they were to reject the Scriptures and trust to their own wisdom, but that they were to understand the Scriptures.  In like manner, when Paul says to the Thessalonians, 'Quench not the Spirit,' he does not carry them aloft to empty speculation apart from the word; he immediately adds, 'Despise not prophesying' (1 Thess 5:19, 20).  By this, doubtless, he intimates that the light of the Spirit is quenched the moment prophesying fall into contempt.  How is this answered by those swelling enthusiast, in whose idea the only true illumination consists, in carelessly laying aside, and bidding adieu to the word of God, while, with no less confidence than folly, they hasten upon any dreaming notion which may have casually sprung up in their minds?  Surely a very different sobriety becomes the children of God.  As they feel that without the Spirit of God they are utterly devoid of the light of truth, so they are not ignorant that the word is the instrument by which the illumination of the Spirit is dispensed.  They know of no other Spirit than the one who dwelled and spoke in the apostles - the Spirit by whose oracles they are daily invited to the hearing of the word" (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion).