56. It is the same with the other Mysteries, where moderate minds will ever find an explanation sufficient for belief, but never such as would be necessary for understanding. A certain _what it is_ ([Greek: ti esti]) is enough for us, but the _how_ ([Greek: pos]) is beyond us, and is not necessary for us. One may say concerning the explanations of Mysteries which are given out here and there, what the Queen of Sweden inscribed upon a medal concerning the crown she had abandoned, 'Non mi bisogna, e non mi basta.' Nor have we any need either (as I have already observed) to prove the Mysteries _a priori_, or to give a reason for them; it suffices us _that the thing is thus_ ([Greek: to hoti]) even though we know not the _why_ ([Greek: to dioti]), which God has reserved for himself. These lines, written on that theme by Joseph Scaliger, are beautiful and renowned: _Ne curiosus quaere causas omnium,_ _Quaecumque libris vis Prophetarum indidit_ _Afflata caelo, plena veraci Deo:_ _Nec operta sacri supparo silentii_ _Irrumpere aude, sed pudenter praeteri._ [Page 105] _Nescire velle, quae Magister optimus_ _Docere non vult, erudita inscitia est._ M. Bayle, who quotes them (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, p. 1055), holds the likely opinion that Scaliger made them upon the disputes between Arminius and Gomarus. I think M. Bayle repeated them from memory, for he put _sacrata_ instead of _afflata_. But it is apparently the printer's fault that _prudenter_ stands in place of _pudenter_ (that is, modestly) which the metre requires. 57. Nothing can be more judicious than the warning these lines contain; and M. Bayle is right in saying (p. 729) that those who claim that the behaviour of God with respect to sin and the consequences of sin contains nothing but what they can account for, deliver themselves up to the mercy of their adversary. But he is not right in combining here two very different things, 'to account for a thing', and 'to uphold it against objections'; as he does when he presently adds: 'They are obliged to follow him [their adversary] everywhere whither he shall wish to lead them, and it would be to retire ignominiously and ask for quarter, if they were to admit that our intelligence is too weak to remove completely all the objections advanced by a philosopher.'