Martyrs and Scripture

Trust Calvin to tip me the wink that the clarity of scripture is a doctrine confirmed by the witness of the martyrs:

Now with what assurance ought we to enlist under that doctrine which we see confirmed and attested by the blood of so many holy men! They, having once received it, did not hesitate, courageously and intrepidly, and even with great eagerness, to suffer death for it. Should we not accept with sure and unshaken conviction what has been handed on to us with such a pledge? It is no moderate approbation of Scripture that it has been sealed by the blood of so many witnesses, especially when we reflect that they died to render testimony to the faith; not with fanatic excess (as erring spirits sometimes accustomed to do) but with a firm and constant, yet sober, zeal toward God... (Inst. I.viii.13)

Of course, this testimony is not sufficient to establish the authority and the clarity of scripture. But it is certainly a necessary condition of it... It is interesting to note how soaked with scripture the early accounts of the deaths of the martyrs are; and how little (by contrast) some ecclesial conception appears. This is even true of Ignatius of Antioch, strangely! Notice too how the mode of death - not in fanatic excess but in sober zeal - figures here. Of course, he has an eye to various Radical Reformation movements here....