Instead of starting with one’s theological presuppositions at the time of the Reformation, one start from the beginning. Jesus taught his disciples, who in turn, filled with the Holy Spirit and given the promise that the gates of hell would never prevail over the Church, taught the first-generation Church across the known world. The Holy Spirit, filling the Church and guiding her, continues to lead the Church, from one generation to the next, clarifying and articulating the faith, initially through the Seven Ecumenical Councils.
Unless one is willing to advance the idea that the Church was defeated and confused from the end of the first century until the 1500’s, the reality is that the Holy Spirit has filled the Church and led the Church in truth since its first generation.
There have been those inside the Church and outside the Church who have sought to mislead and confuse her teaching, but these have been identified as heretics or heterodox and have been severed or defected to start/re-start “the one true church”. But these are not teaching historic Christianity, they are introducing private interpretation, innovation, and heresy.
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