Preservation supports Inspiration

“Let me hear some of those Reasons which prove that God is the Author of the Holy Scriptures...Fifteenthly. The marvellous preservation of the Scriptures. Though none in time be so ancient, nor none so much oppugned; yet God hath still by his Providence preserved them, and every part of them.”

A Body of Divinity: Or, The Sum and Substance of Christian Religion, James Us(s)her (1581–1656), 1677, London: Printed by J. D., pp. 5, 8

“We may know the Scripture to be the Word of God by its miraculous preservation in all ages. The holy Scriptures are the richest jewel that Christ has left us; and the church of God has so kept these public records of heaven, that they have not been lost. The Word of God has never wanted enemies to oppose, and, if possible, to extirpate it. They have given out a law concerning Scripture, as Pharaoh did the midwives, concerning the Hebrew women’s children, to strangle it in the birth; but God has preserved this blessed Book inviolable to this day. The devil and his agents have been blowing at Scripture light, but could never blow it out; a clear sign that it was lighted from heaven. Nor has the church of God, in all revolutions and changes, kept the Scripture that it should not be lost only, but that it should not be depraved. The letter of Scripture has been preserved, without any corruption, in the original tongue. The Scriptures were not corrupted before Christ’s time, for then Christ would not have sent the Jews to them. He said, ‘Search the Scriptures.’ He knew these sacred springs were not muddied with human fancies.”

A Body of Divinity, Thomas Watson (ca. 1620–1686), p. 27 in online transcription