De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

These things therefore having been established among Catholics, it remains to establish against the Lutherans the truth of this conclusion, that the works of the just are worthy merits of eternal life.¹ Moreover the name of our merit before God is especially celebrated by the Fathers in the Church from its very cradle.² Of this there is no need of witnesses, since not even the adversaries deny it, but they deny that merit of eternal life exists in the sacred letters. For that saying, All mercy will make a place for each according to the merit of his works, they do not receive so easily as canonical: because, according to Jerome in the prologue Galeatus, that book is not among the Hebrews.³ Nevertheless by the most ancient, such as Hegesippus, Irenaeus, and the rest nearest to the time of the apostles, it is cited as prophetic: as Eusebius in book 4 and Augustine in book 17 of The City of God, chapter 20, are authorities.⁴ And Damascene in book 4, chapter 18, numbers it among the canonical books, which the Church also from the third Council of Carthage, where five books of Solomon are received, up to the present Council of Trent has always received into the canon.

Now indeed even in Paul the name of merit is manifest, where he says, Do not forget beneficence and communion: for with such sacrifices God is appeased.⁵ And to the Colossians: He has made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints.⁶ And, God tried them, and found them worthy of himself.⁷ And Christ in the Gospel: The worker is worthy of his wage, where although he spoke of food, he also suggested merit before God.⁸ But contention about the name is superfluous where the matter itself is most clear. Therefore the first conclusion is established concerning this matter.⁹ The works of the just which are good in their kind and circumstances are all condign merits both of increased grace and also of eternal life. I have said both of the just and of increased grace. Because it was shown diffusely and plainly in book 2 that the works of a sinner are by no means merits of the first grace. Let us immediately subjoin to this conclusion the first reason, which we often use against these men:¹⁰ namely, that which is drawn from the nature of things. Faith does not overturn nature, but restores and perfects it: but the reward of honor is owed to virtue by its own right and merit, as Aristotle is the authority.¹¹ And the same [is owed] by the lawgiver himself, who is the guardian of what is just: therefore God did not abrogate this law of nature through the grace of Christ, but rather preserved it. But he preserved it in this way: since man by natural vigor could perform no work of virtue that would be of any merit in his sight, he sent his Son, who would both free us from sin and thereafter give us power to become sons of God, if we assent to his calling. Therefore when we are now through his grace sons, our works, supported by his own help, are worthy before him of his grace and glory, which is properly the reward of the sons of God. And that the reasons of merit introduced above may become clearer, the argument is confirmed.¹² The work of the just man is a free work of obedience, by which we obey God according to his will, and is therefore a good work, and not only from his friendship but also by his command or persuasion, and so exhibited with his help: therefore it is worthy of the reward which he himself has set before his friends and those who obey him: but this is eternal life, according to that saying, If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments:¹³ therefore it is the merit of that blessed life. But let us descend to the light of sacred Scripture, by whose rays all these things become clear. Merit (as has been said) and reward are referred to each other,¹⁴ and sacred Scripture repeatedly mentions the reward which awaits us for our works before God: therefore our works are its merits. The subsumed proposition is plain. For from the very beginning, when God began to deal with mortals concerning our salvation, the first conversation which he entered into with Abraham was this: Fear not, Abraham, I am your protector, and your reward is exceedingly great.¹⁵ And although literally it is perhaps understood of the very wide propagation of his seed, nevertheless in mystery it certainly signified eternal retribution, which is properly the reward of faith, which he then required of him. Whence because that reward was set before us through Christ, therefore Isaiah, when he foreannounces his coming, says: Behold, your God: behold the Lord God will come with strength, and his arm shall rule: behold his reward is with him, and his work before him.¹⁶ To which John agrees in the Apocalypse: Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to each according to his works.¹⁷ And indeed Christ himself our liberator, in the first place where he began to preach the law, immediately set a reward before those who obey. Rejoice, he says, and exult when men have cursed you and persecuted you, because your reward is copious in heaven.¹⁸ And to explain that our works have the account of justice in respect of that reward, he called the same works justice, admonishing us not to intend another vain reward. For attend, he says, not to do your justice before men, that you may be seen by them: otherwise you will not have a reward with your Father who is in heaven. And he adds: But when you do alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does, that your alms may be in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.¹⁹ To which Paul agrees: Whatever you do, work from the soul, as for the Lord, and not for men: knowing that from the Lord you will receive the retribution of the inheritance. Therefore by three names: namely, of reward, justice, and retribution, he has designated nothing else than the right and merit of works.

But let us hear the interpretation of Melanchthon in his Augsburg Apology.²⁰ For he and his companions answer these things in two ways. First, that eternal life is called a reward not because it is owed to our works, but to the promise of God. But it is called a reward, they say, because it is a certain recompense of good works, not insofar as they are ours, but insofar as they are God's alone, as the fruit of faith: according to the word of Augustine in On Grace and Free Choice: God crowns his own gifts. Which word they understand as if by no means they should be called our merits. But who does not see how they cannot escape by this diversion? For who would attribute to that benefit, which one bestows solely on account of a gratuitous promise with no right or merit of the receiver intervening, any account of reward? Since a gratuitous benefit and a reward differ as much as a work of liberality and a work of justice. But if eternal life is called a reward because it is a recompense, this very thing is a confession of merit. For recompense is a work of justice on account of debt. Paul teaches us this, where he therefore denies that our justification, by which we are made just from unjust, is from works, because to one who works the reward is not imputed according to grace but according to debt.²¹ Hence it is gathered from the contrary sense that if a reward is rendered to our works, it is owed to them as merits.²² But as for what Augustine says, that God crowns his gifts, he explains himself thus: not that they are not our merits through our free choice, but because they are made in us by his own help.²³ The second solution is that our works are truly merits, but not worthy of eternal life, but of other rewards, corporal and spiritual, which are rendered both in this life and afterward in the fatherland.²⁴ Behold the reason why in the imperial book of the colloquy of Ratisbon²⁵ they, confident that a reward is owed to our works, both corporal and spiritual, in this life and in the future, never confessed that they are merits of eternal life, but of goods, as it seemed good to divine providence. For eternal life, they say, is owed only to the reborn on account of the promise alone accepted by faith. But in this cavillation there is not one but a manifold falsity and stubbornness. First, if they now concede to the works of the just some dignity of reward, even heavenly, then such works are not sins, as Luther began to say.²⁶ But if they are good and proceed from grace, why do they hesitate to confess rewards of eternal life? Next, either those works are meritorious only insofar as they proceed from free choice, or insofar as they proceed from the help and grace of God through free choice. The first they themselves deny with us:²⁷ therefore they are meritorious insofar as they proceed from grace, whence it becomes manifest that they are meritorious of eternal life itself, whose seed is grace. I will say it more plainly: grace is acceptance to eternal life, distinguishing between the sons of God and the sons of the kingdom: therefore if works, which before grace were of no price with God, receive from grace that they be merits, of what reward do they receive that they be merits, if not of eternal life? Besides. Every accidental reward of the heavenly kingdom, such as the aureoles and the vision of Christ's humanity, and the fellowship of the saints, and the rest of this kind, flow from essential beatitude: therefore if by our works we acquire a right to accidental rewards, it is from this, that we acquire a right to life itself. Now indeed I seem to form this necessary argument against them. To one asking what he should do to have eternal life,²⁸ Christ answers that he should keep the commandments: and that if he left and sold his goods, he could become perfect. Immediately Peter asks what reward therefore awaited themselves, who had left all things on account of him. To whom Christ: You who have followed me, in the regeneration you will sit upon twelve seats judging, etc. For everyone who has left house or brothers or sisters, etc., will receive a hundredfold, and will possess eternal life. Behold, accidental rewards are distinguished: namely, to sit as judges, and to receive a hundredfold, which the saints explain either in this life, as to the peace and joy of the soul, which is the fruit of temporal goods, or even in the future life, where there is the fullness of all goods: and besides these, the essential reward of eternal life. Hence therefore the argument is taken. The works of the just are truly merits of those accidental rewards (as the adversaries themselves confess), therefore also of eternal life itself: since under the same tenor both are proposed as a reward. Nay, the adversaries themselves are compelled to answer for us.²⁹ For all rewards, even accidental, which in any way, whether in this life or in the future, pertain to beatitude: namely, either advancing us here, or in any way beatifying us there, pertain to the promise of God through Christ: therefore if, notwithstanding that they are rendered to us on account of the promise, those accidental rewards are nevertheless truly rewards rendered to our merits, why do they not confess the same of eternal life? Here indeed lies hidden³⁰ both their error and our answer. For we do not deny that eternal life is given to us on account of God's promise. But nevertheless because it is promised to those cooperating with grace and his help, nothing prevents it from being given as the reward of our works. For thus Paul says to Timothy: Piety is useful for all things, having the promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come.³¹ Where he says that both the essential and the accidental reward are promised to the works of piety. Nor is there any derogation here from the grace of Christ, but rather it is exalted, because he pours such a power of meriting into his members. Therefore the legitimate sense of Christ's words, when he names a reward, must be gathered from this, that, following the use and custom of those who established civil commonwealths, he himself, setting down divine laws, proposes the prize and palm to those who act lawfully, obedience to which would be worthy of them. Whence Paul, using the similitude of those who ran in the stadium looking to the prize, says: All run, but one receives the prize.³² There is besides very much mention of reward in the sacred canon:³³ as in Ruth 2 that patriarch says: May the Lord repay you for your work, and may you receive a full reward from the Lord God of Israel. And, But the just shall live forever, and their reward is with the Lord.³⁴ And, Do not fear to be justified until death, because the reward of God remains forever.³⁵ And, There is a reward for your work.³⁶ And Christ in the Gospel: He who receives a prophet (and he was alluding to himself) will receive the reward of a prophet.³⁷ And, Lift up your eyes, and see the regions which are already white for the harvest, so that he who reaps receives a reward, and gathers fruit unto eternal life.³⁸ And Paul: But each one will receive his own reward according to his labor.³⁹ What is "according to his labor" but according to the merit of labor? And again: That which is at present momentary and light in our tribulation works in us beyond measure, in sublimity, an eternal weight of glory. What else can "works" be than "merits"? And, See to yourselves, that you do not lose what you have worked, but that you may receive a full reward.⁴⁰ Full, that is, just. As Christ himself, the giver of rewards, says: In what measure you have measured, it will be measured to you. And in Luke: Love your enemies, do good, lend, hoping for nothing from it: give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing, will they give into your bosom.⁴¹ By what words could the account of merit be explained more openly?

To this at last is added that saying of Paul, where he explains the retribution of merit both good and evil: For tribulation and anguish, he says, upon every soul of man who works evil. But glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works good.⁴² But see here, candid reader, another cavillation by which these men think to shake off such testimonies. Melanchthon says in his Commonplaces⁴³ that Paul does not say, To a man simulating good, but working from faith, so that by the name of works faith with its fruits is understood. And therefore the reward, he says, is rendered only on account of the promise. This is their madness (as we began to note at the beginning of this book), to call all external works simulation and hypocrisy. Who of us ever said that works are worthy merits, except only those which proceed from faith? Yet from this it is gathered by no probability that the reward is rendered only on account of the promise. For then it would not have the account of a reward: just as neither does the promise have the account of merit: therefore the reward is owed to works insofar as they are freely done by us from faith, and indeed from the grace and help of God.

There comes in the second place, in confirmation of the same conclusion, besides the name of reward, the name of justice also, which is constant in sacred Scripture.⁴⁴ For David says: I will keep myself from my iniquity, and the Lord will repay me according to my justice.⁴⁵ Where the Prophet plainly speaks of his justice before God, and not of justice against his persecutors, as Melanchthon cavils in the Apology,⁴⁶ expounding that saying, Judge me, Lord, according to my justice. For he had premised: I have kept the ways of the Lord, and I have not acted impiously against my God, and I have not put away his justices from me, and I will be spotless with him. And at last he adds: And the Lord has repaid me, etc. As if he had said: because I have kept his justices, he himself will keep his justice with me, repaying me a just reward for just merit: according to the word of the Wise Man, To him who sows justice, a faithful reward.⁴⁷ Nor was the Prophet only certain that there is a reward with God for good works, but even with a view to it it was lawful for a man to stir himself to work. Whence he says: I have inclined my heart to do your justifications forever on account of the retribution.⁴⁸ As also Paul says of Moses that he looked to the remuneration. But for all, the authority of Paul concerning the justice of works is enough. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith, for the rest there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord will render to me on that day, the just judge.⁴⁹ If he had only mentioned faith and mercy here, you Lutherans could cloak your opinion with it, and feign that eternal life is given to us for no other reason than because God promised it to us without any respect to our works. But yet he says: I have fought the good fight, not God fought: but I fought, and I finished the course. Nor does he only say, By faith I received mercy, but, I have kept the faith: that is, the law which I professed by faith I have fulfilled in work: and therefore God, the just judge, as the prize-giver of my contest, will crown me with the crown of justice. But you persist in answering that this is the justice of faith. We too indeed acknowledge this word, but we refute your understanding. We concede, I say, that our works are the justice of faith in this, that unless they flowed from faith and the grace of Christ they would be of no merit; nevertheless our works, that is, those which we do from faith through free choice, are merits of eternal glory. According to that most significant word of Paul: Let us draw near with a true heart in the fullness of faith:⁵⁰ having our hearts sprinkled from a bad conscience, and our bodies washed with clean water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering: for he is faithful who has promised. He did not say only, who promised, but who has promised again, if we keep an unwavering faith. And to the same purpose belongs what he had said in chapter 5: God is not unjust that he should forget your work and the labor undertaken from charity. And John: Little children, let no one seduce you: for he who does justice is just, as he also is just:⁵¹ namely, in rendering, as we are in working. And Paul says: Do not lose your confidence: which has a great remuneration.⁵² And in chapter 11 he does not say only that the saints by faith conquered kingdoms, but that from the same faith, working justice, they obtained the promises. But remuneration and promise, what do they present to the ears but a reward? Third and finally the conclusion is confirmed from the retribution which is promised to those who do the commands of God. For Christ compared the kingdom of heaven to a householder who, having made an agreement for a daily denarius, sent workers into his vineyard.⁵³ And in another parable, from the talents distributed, he demands interest from the servants, and for its merit promises to set the faithful servants over his household. And he admonishes us as friends to make friends by whom we may be received into eternal tabernacles.⁵⁴ And elsewhere, that we should not invite to a banquet brothers and relatives who can repay us, but the poor, the weak, and the lame, so that it may be repaid to us in the resurrection of the just. And Paul says: God on the day of just judgment will render to each according to his works: to those indeed who according to patience in good work seek glory, honor, and incorruption, eternal life: but to those who are of contention, etc., anger and indignation.⁵⁵ And, We must all be manifested before the tribunal of Christ, that each one may receive the things proper to his body, according as he has done, whether good⁵⁶ or evil. Surely if there were no other testimony, this would be most sufficient. For if good works were not a true cause and merits of the retribution of the just, just as evils are also merits of punishment, what need would there be to stand before the tribunal of Christ and be judged, of what each one was worthy of retribution? Finally all these confirm the word of our judge himself, Christ. For then, he says, he will say to those who are at his right hand: Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.⁵⁷ For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink, etc. Where the particle "for" has the signification of a cause in good merits equally as in evil. Whence just as the unmerciful, because they did not feed Christ, will be sent into eternal fire, so the just also on account of the merit of mercy will be received into the kingdom. And this is what he concludes: These will go into eternal punishment, but the just into eternal life. False therefore and contrary to the sacred utterance is the gloss of Bucer on Paul to the Romans 2, Who renders to each according to his works.⁵⁸ For he says that "according to works" does not state any cause or merit of our works, but only a compensation. But far different and other is the sense of Paul, and most open to those who consider it. For thus he distinguishes everywhere between grace and glory, that wherever he mentions justifying grace, by which the unjust becomes just, he excludes all works from the account of merit. And in like manner, where he mentions the coming of Christ. For just as he was given to us freely, with no merits of men preceding, so we are made his members purely freely. But where he speaks of the reward of eternal life, then he makes mention of works, namely those which are now through the grace of Christ merits of it. From this Augustine took that celebrated distinction of grace into operating, with respect to justification, and cooperating, with respect to merits.

God does not merit, but we.— Finally, the last refuge to which these men betake themselves, so that they may not be forced to confess the merits of works, is that if eternal life is set before the works of the just in the Gospel, it is not because they are our merits, but only because they are fruits of faith and merits of God: and therefore, they say, the reward is not rendered to works, but to faith alone apprehending the promise of that reward.⁵⁹ But first of all they will not deny that faith is the cause of that reward and so a merit. For this very thing, to receive by faith, that is, to believe the promise, would have the account of merit. But whatever they answer to this, the argument is made otherwise, so that by this last reason we may touch the point of the matter.⁶⁰ For this very thing, that our works are fruits of faith, we do not deny, but willingly confess. But nevertheless from this we take the argument that we merit through fruits of this kind. For faith is not something which can of itself bear fruit, but through our free choice.⁶¹ And this is what they ought to think on more attentively. For if faith existed in us in such a way that it were not free for us to obey it, it would bear no fruit in us, and would be more in brute animals. Wherefore it is not faith itself that works, but we through it. But how this is done, the Apostle explains to us where he explains the account of faith itself. For it is necessary, he says, to believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder.⁶² Behold the root of merits: to believe that he is a rewarder. And therefore faith is the argument of things to be hoped for, because it sends us into hope, directing the intention of our works. And from this it has that it is the beginning and start of the life of the just. Wherefore the same Apostle to the Colossians says: Because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, you have love toward the saints.⁶³ Faith therefore, raising our hope, stirs up charity toward God, through which we work. Wherefore Paul did not say that faith works of itself, but through charity: namely, by which we love God, although at last we have received it from him. Nor does he call our works in Galatians fruits of faith, but fruits of the Spirit against the works of the flesh.⁶⁴ And each virtue has its own proper fruits. For, John says, do fruits worthy of penance.⁶⁵ Nay, even beatitude itself is called the fruit of our works. For, the Wise Man says, the fruit of good labors is glorious. And to the Philippians Paul says: Be sincere and without offense in the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of justice.⁶⁶ He did not say only of faith, but of general justice. And below: To me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in the flesh, this is to me the fruit of work, etc. Therefore he calls death gain on account of merit, and life the fruit of work on account of the eternal reward. Whence David says: Blessed are they who shall eat the labors of their hands. And the same Paul to the Galatians: What a man has sown, that will he also reap.⁶⁷ It is therefore a most shameful ignorance, because works are in some way fruits of faith, to deny that they are properly our merits: that is, of our free choice divinely helped. There is an example in natural things:⁶⁸ a pear tree indeed bears fruit through the power of God and his general influence: yet notwithstanding this, the fruits are truly and properly of the tree itself; equally therefore it must be judged concerning the fruits of the just man through grace and special help. Whence Christ says: Make the tree good and its fruits good: that is, make the will good and the works good.⁶⁹ And Paul: By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace in me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than all of them: yet not I, but the grace of God with me.⁷⁰ With me, he says, as helping. Whence Augustine in the letter to Hilary, which is 89, chapter 3,⁷¹ says: Free choice avails for good works if it is divinely helped. And below: For free choice is not therefore taken away because it is helped, but it is therefore helped because it is not taken away. And in the Hypognosticon book 3: How, he says, would it be rendered to each according to his works on the day of judgment, unless there were free choice, so that with God working man might cooperate? And below: How could Paul fight the good fight and finish the course? Because neither alone, nor grace alone, but the grace of God with me. Which grace, he says, is in free choice as a rider on a horse who guides it. From these at last he concludes: Neither does grace without free choice make a man have eternal life, nor free choice without grace, except in little children, in whom grace works without free choice. Thus far Augustine. But although our merits are the works of God preventing, nevertheless it is not only improper and most inept, but also most false speech, that God merits through us. For to merit states a respect between two: namely, between the one obeying and the one rewarding: but we merit through his help. According to that saying of Ezekiel 36, which Augustine cites in book 3 of the Hypognosticon to this purpose: I will put my Spirit in the midst of you, and I will make you walk in my precepts, and keep my judgments, and do them: therefore he does not merit, but makes us merit. Wherefore Augustine never says that God crowns his merits, but he says, he crowns your merits as his gifts. And so, insofar as they are made by him, they are called not his merits but his gifts; but insofar as they are from us, they are called merits. And therefore, he says, if our merits were so understood that they were also recognized as God's gifts, the sentence would not be to be disapproved. So he in On Free Choice, chapters 6 and 7. But our Protestants, because they have repudiated the whole scholastic account, thinking that to those imbued with Virgil and Homer the understanding of both the holy Fathers and sacred Scripture would be immediately easy, it is no wonder if through thoughtlessness or (let the word be without offense) perhaps through ignorance of things they have made so much trouble for us.

One can merit the first grace for another.— Against them I will make an end if I have only subjoined this word. Namely, that our free choice would be in vain if the account of merit were taken away from the offices of the just. These men say that free choice has a place only in natural things, but not in the works of grace before God. But one who weighs the matter more prudently will judge far otherwise. Moreover, since all these natural things were created for man, and man for the service of God, through which he could attain eternal felicity, in this especially man was made free by God, the craftsman of nature, that God might be glorified by his obedience, and that man might so use his grace and help as to be made worthy of eternal life. For if God gave us that glory so freely that no merits of ours intervened, it would indeed have the essential account of beatitude, such as Christian infants have who die before the use of reason, but it would lack that praise and honor which according to all the wise is owed to virtue. For it is more excellent in human things to have merited what you do not have than to have what you did not merit. Whence it cannot but be a most splendid accident of glory in the saints that they arrived at that triumph through their own merits. Wherefore since man could not do this by his own nature, it was the greatest mercy of God to bestow on us through his Son such virtue and power. Namely, that before the divine tribunal some might bring back the talents entrusted to them with interest: others might carry back sheaves from the seeds which they had sown in tears: others who washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb might bear palms in their hands: and so all who, made strong in battle, by faith conquered kingdoms and worked justice, might obtain their promises. The glory of all these will be returned to God through Christ our Lord. Most deservedly therefore the Church, which, renowned for the merits of the saints, daily sings their joys, has pronounced against those who speak against merits of this kind in the Synod of Trent,⁷² Session 6. In chapter 10 of its confession it is held that the justified, and friends of God, going from virtue to virtue through the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, with the grace of Christ and faith helping, grow in the same justice, daily asking for the increase of faith, hope, and charity. And chapter 11: It is clear that they are adversaries of the doctrine of orthodox religion who deny that it is lawful for the just to look to the reward while they run in the stadium, as David inclined his heart to do justices on account of retributions. And canon 24 condemns under anathema him who has said that the justice received is not preserved and increased before God through good works, which are the cause of its increase. And canon 26 likewise condemns him who has said that the just ought not to hope for eternal retribution for good works. The conclusion is therefore most proved, that although a sinful man can merit neither the first grace for himself nor any grace for another, nevertheless a just man, through the grace and help of God, can merit both the increase of grace and also glory for himself by condignity, but for another by congruity. As Stephen merited for Paul, and Moses often merited for the people: and Christ in the Gospel, seeing the faith of those who offered the paralytic, said to him: Have confidence, son. Your sins are forgiven you.⁷³ Where the gloss says: Consider, brothers, how much the faith of another avails with God, when the faith of another availed so much. As also the citizens of heaven are accustomed to obtain good things even for us. For what madness is it to deny that those who are in grace and friendship of God can sometimes intercede before the divine majesty for those whom they love in God himself? But this kind of merit is called of congruity, from the fact that no law is established that whatever the just man prays of God in favor of another should come to pass. For he says through Jeremiah: If Moses and Samuel stood before me, my soul is not toward this people.⁷⁴ Wherefore Christ alone could merit for others by condignity: but a man merits grace for another, not that it is conferred without his own act, otherwise each one would not receive according to his own deeds, as Paul says; but a friend can merit for a friend a good motion, a conversion to God. Wherefore I would by no means agree with those who in 4 Sent. d. 4 think that parents or those baptizing can merit for a little child some portion of grace: for the grace of baptism is conferred equally on all, except on account of the greater disposition of the receiver. But that cannot be in a little child. But this place does not open itself to that disputation.