Calvin on the Authoritative Prophetic Word

Calvin on the prophets speaks powerfully and stirringly. Here's a comment on Hos. 1:2, where it says, "The beginning of the word of YHWH in Hosea."

God then spoke in Hosea, or by Hosea, for he brought forth nothing from his own brains, but God spoke by him; this is a form of speaking with which we shall often meet. On this, indeed, depends the whole authority of God's servants, that they give not themselves loose reins, but faithfully deliver, as it were, from hand to hand, what the Lord has commanded them, without adding any thing whatever of their own.

So let no man so boldly dare to speak a word in the name of the Lord from his own brains. And may God be pleased to raise up more and more who faithfully propound nothing but the word of the Lord. The Lord has spoken, who can but prophesy?