And now that we have marked these things for evidence of our assertion, who will not rest persuaded that the father of the Romans, and therefore the Romans themselves, were the noblest people under heaven? Who can fail to see the divine predestination shown forth by the double meeting of blood from every part of the world in the veins of one man? IV.--Again, that which is helped to its perfection by miracles is willed by God, and therefore it is of right. This is manifestly true, for as Thomas says in his third book against the Gentiles, "a miracle is something done by God beyond the commonly established order of things."[214] And so he proves that God alone can work miracles; and his proof is strengthened by the authority of Moses; for on the occasion of the plague of lice, when the magicians of Pharaoh used natural principles artfully, and then failed, they said: "This is the finger of God."[215] A miracle therefore being the immediate working of the first agent, without the co-operation of any secondary agents, as Thomas himself sufficiently proves in the book which we have mentioned, it is impious to say where a miracle is worked in aid of anything, that that thing is not of God, as something well pleasing to him, which he foresaw. Therefore it is religious to accept the contradictory of this. The Roman Empire has been helped to its perfection by miracles; therefore it was willed by God, and consequently was and is by right.[216] [Footnote 214: _Contra Gent._ iii. 101.--(W.)] [Footnote 215: Exod. vii. 12-15.--(W.)] [Footnote 216: Witte refers to the _Ep. ad Reges_, § 8, for the same thought.]