in the opinion of david kastan, "this is as close as we can get to an expression of [shakespeare's] own belief, and might well be taken as conclusive evidence [by some people]". a. l. rowse (2013), for instance, insisted that the statement in shakespeare's will shows a conformist position to protestant religion. kastan discusses how some might see the phrase ""through thonlie merittes of jesus christe"" as a reference to the doctrine of "solus christus", but at the same time he argues that the expression "might have become merely conventional by 1616, and have little or any theological import". thus, he asserts that this can hardly be considered as an ultimate evidence to define shakespeare's religious affiliation, since the preamble was formulaic in the epoch.