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Yes. They *did* rely on an infallible Church. To whom was Jesus speaking in John 14:25-26 and 15:12-15? The Apostles. Who are they? The founding bishops of the Church. They are promised that the Holy Spirit "will guide you into all the truth." This promise extends beyond the 11 men to whom it was spoken, to their successors down to our own day and beyond. The Church, which is the "pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15), derives the benfit of Jesus' words already cited in John 14 and 15 primarily through the authority granted by Christ to the Apostles and their successors.

The New Testament was written from around 45 AD to 90 AD. A minimum of eight men (possibly nine, if St. Paul did not write Hebrews) were the human instruments through which God's inspired, written revelation came to the Church. These writers were scattered around the Roman Empire, and their writings often took decades to disseminate through the Church. Thus, the entire New Testament was *not* available to the entire Church as quickly as the 90's AD.

Gradually, the books of the New Testament filtered through the Christian community, alongside of other writings: numerous "Epistles" and "Gospels," and other writings such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache. Sure, some of the writings were spurious on their face, but others were not so easy to discern as non-inspired. The Didache was written before the end of the Apostolic Era, so why was it not included in the canon? Apostleship is not reqired as a prerequisite for scriptural authorship: just ask Mark and Luke! Yet the Didache was not included; it was merely "useful" for teaching. Who said?

Not till near the end of the fourth Century, and the beginning of the fifth, was the matter of canonicity finally settled. The canon was fairly uniform throughut the Church by this time through tradition, but there were some differences in the tally of books from one place to another. Definition of the canon was in order. By 419, several Church councils and papal ratifications of them had settled the canon. Pope Innocent, in 405, formally ratified the canon of both Testaments after the work of St. Jerome. Subsequent to this, there was no more irregularity in the canon of Scripture i the universal Church. The *Church* settled the matter, not some inward conviction within individual believers. An Ecumenical Council, Trent, defined the canon dogmatically in the 1500's, NOT because the Church had failed to do so 1100 years earlier, but because the Protestants had already removed seven books from their OT canon, and had contemplated the removal of various books in the NT (Luther, for example, really wanted to remove James and Revelation, among others, but was talked out of it). It was in response to that that an Ecumenical Council defined the canon. Barring such outrageous presumption on the part of the early Protestants, the strength of the several regional councils' earlier wold have had more than sufficient authority to satisfy any reasonable inquiry into the matter.

Where did the Protestants go to justify their different canon? A primary source to which they appealed was the Council of Jamnia (also known as Javneh) held about 90 AD. What was different about this council that its authority was appealed to? It was Jewish. And, again, it took place about 90 AD. Hmmm. What Christian would ascribe authority for ascertaining the canon of Scripture to a Jewish council held 60 years after the birth of the Church and 20 years after the destruction of the Temple, sacrifice and priesthood of the Jewish people? What authority could that council *possibly* have for Christians? Beats me.

Yet, its decisions were appealed to. Appart from authority, their decisions are inconsistent for a Christian to follow for another reason. That Council of Jamnia *specifically* rejected *all* of the writings of what we call the New Testament as were knwn to exist by the council! How can a Christian group not only accede to the decisions of a group whose authority was null and void, but accede to the decision on the OT canon, while, obviously, having to simultaneously reject the Jewish rejection of the NT canon?

The fact is, no Protestant can make a coherent, rational case for why *anything* is considered canonical, because to do so would be to no longer reject the authority of the Catholic Church which chronologically precedes any Protestant consideration of the matter. The Catholic Church gave them a completed book, and they proceded to play a 16th Century Reader's Digest-style editing job in abridging it. Protestants cannot acknowledge the authority of the Church in the issue of canonicity because they would, by derivation, have to acknowledge the authority of the Church in other matters. That, of course, simply cannot do!

What we are left with is a group of people who claim to hold the Bible as the only source of revelation but cannot even point to why it is so; who claim "faith alone" provides justification even though nowhere in their only source of revelation, the Bible, can this concept be found as a distinct phrase (well, actually, it *does* exist once in Scripture as part of a phrase: "...NOT by faith alone..." James 2:25); who, of late, largely consider the concept of "once saved, always saved" is correct, though that teaching, too, is nowhere to be found as such in any part of the Bible they consider to be the sole source of revelation,; and a host of other logical inconsistencies. All of which stem from the ultimate logical inconsistency: they hold to a source of faith whose legitimacy they cannot corroborate, for to do so lends credence to the Church that bore witness to that source and has that source witnessing to itself, and that Church is held by them to be anathema!!