Why did the Council of Trent emphasize continuity with the early Church over against Luthers stress on scripture?

Answer 1

Simple: Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, only established ONE Church, and commissioned it to go out to all the world, preaching and baptizing. He guaranteed that ONE Church until the end of the world. And that ONE Church wrote and then approved the New Testament Scriptures as part of its preaching. Our Blessed Lord never wrote a word (other than something in the sand, and certainly did NOT commission that apostles to write Scripture). Thus the Catholic Church is the One, Holy, and Apostolic Church that was founded by God and guaranteed by God.

For Martin Luther to use the Church's own Scriptures, which it had written, approved, and guaranteed, against her, and to say that she was not the Church, is the worst form of outright lying and heresy that has been around since his predecessors claimed that Jesus was not God.