8. But as the wills of
friends, which are not seen, are believed through tokens which are
seen; thus the Church, which is now seen, is, of all things which
are not seen, but which are shown forth in those writings wherein
itself also is foretold, an index of the past, and a herald of the
future. Because both things past, which cannot now be seen, and
things present which cannot be seen all of them, at the time at
which they were foretold, no one of these could then be seen.
Therefore, since they have begun to come to pass as they were
foretold, from those things which have come to pass unto those
which are coming to pass, those things which were foretold
concerning Christ and the Church have run on in an ordered series:
unto which series these pertain concerning the day of Judgment,
concerning the resurrection of the dead, concerning the eternal
damnation of the ungodly with the devil, and concerning the eternal
recompense of the godly with Christ, things which, foretold in like
manner, are yet to come. Why therefore should we not believe the
first and the last things which we see not, when we have, as
witnesses of both, the things between, which we see, and in the
books of the Prophets either hear or read both 342the first
things, and the things between, and the last things, foretold
before they came to pass? Unless haply unbelieving men judge those
things to have been written by Christians, in order that those
things which they already believed might have greater weight of
authority, if they should be thought to have been promised before
they came.