B. Keach on the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures

“IX. To these astonishing miracles we may fitly add, the preservation of these holy writings for so many ages, being itself little less than miraculous, and such as is a great argument, that they belong to God, as the Author and Parent of them: it being reasonable to derive that from God, as a book of his own dictates, about which he has exercised a peculiar care. Were not the Bible what it pretends to be, there had been nothing more suitable to the nature of God, and more becoming divine Providence, than long since to have blotted it out of the world: for why should he suffer a book to continue from the beginning of times, falsely pretending his name and authority?” p. xv

“…though the Romans were so careful for the preservation of the books of the Sybils, that they locked them up in places of greatest safety, and appointed special officers to look after them; yet many ages since they are gone and perished, and only some few fragments do now remain. Whereas, on the contrary, the Bible, notwithstanding part of it was the first book in the world, (as we proved in the second argument) and though the craft of Satan, and the rage of mankind, have from time to time combined utterly to suppress it; yet it has borne up its head, and remains not only extant, but whole and entire, without the least mutilation or corruption.” p. xv

“Since therefore the Bible has thus wonderfully surmounted all difficulties and oppositions, for so many generations, and in so many dangers, and against so many endeavours to root it out of the world, we may, (according to that maxim in philosophy, Eadem est causa procreans et conservans; the procreating and conserving cause of things, is one and the same) conclude, that the same God is the Author of it, who hath thus by his special providence preserved it, and faithfully promised, and cannot lie, that heaven and earth shall pass away, but one iota or tittle of his word shall not pass away.” p. xvi

“The penman of the Scriptures, good, pious, honest, holy men, delivered it out as the Word of the Lord, and ever since there have been thousands, and hundreds of thousands, that have believed and testified the same down from age to age in a continual uninterrupted succession…” p. xvi

“XVI. The divine composition of this blessed book is not a little manifested by the continual rage of the devil against it, which appears not only in the stirring up of his instruments utterly to suppress it, (for what book in the world ever met with such opposition? as aforesaid), but also in those temptations with which he assaults the hearts of men, when they apply themselves to the serious study of it.” p xx

“We shall therefore conclude this brief discourse on this subject, with those excellent words of a learned man upon the same occasion:—“Let this remain and be received as an established truth, that those whom the Spirit hath inwardly taught, do solidly acquiesce in the Scripture; and that the same is (αυτοπισον) self-credible, or for its own sake worthy of belief, and that it obtains that certainty which it justly deserves with us, by the testimony of the Spirit....Calv. Instit. lib. 2.” p. xxiv

Quotations from 17th century English Baptist Benjamin Keach (1640-1704), in his book Tropologia; a Key to Open Scripture Metaphors...to Which are Prefixed, Arguments to prove the Divine Authority of the Holy Bible (from the section entitled “The Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures”).