Institutes of Elenctic Theology by Francis Turretin

Was it necessary for the word of God to be committed to writing? We affirm... Three things particularly prove the necessity of the Scripture: (1) the preservation of the word; (2) its vindication; (3) its propagation. It wasnecessary for a written word to be given to the church that the canon of true religious faith might be constant and unmoved; that it might easily be preserved pure and entire against the weakness of memory, the depravity of men and the shortness of life; that it might be more certainly defended from the frauds and corruptions of Satan; that it might more conveniently not only be sent to the absent and widely separated, but also be transmitted to posterity. For by 'letters,' as Vives well observes, 'all the arts are preserved as in a treasury, so that they can never perish, while on the contrary, tradition by the hand is unhappy' (De disciplinis ' de Corruptis Artibus 1 [1636], p. 5). This is a divine and wonderful advantage of letters, as Quintilian says, 'that they guard words and deliver them to readers as a sacred trust' (Institutio Oratoria 1.7.31 [Loeb, 1:144'45]). Nor for any other reason are the public laws, statutes and edicts of kings and the decrees of the commonality inscribed upon brass or committed to public tablets, except that this is the most sure method of preserving them uncorrupted and of propagating through many ages the remembrance of those things which it is important for the people to know.

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