Although this Epistle contains the principle ascribed to Jesus, "charity and not sacrifice" (xiii. 9) and substitutes for beasts the "sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips harmonious with his good name" (verse 15), the letter that killeth brought forth from the same chapter the fatal doctrine that the body of Jesus was a sacrifice to be eaten. And although this emphasizes the completeness of his humanity to an extent inconsistent with his deity, it is on the letter of this Epistle that the deification of Christ is founded. V. 7-9. "Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up entreaties with vehement crying and tears to him able to save him out of death, and although inclined to because of his piety, yet, albeit a son, learned obedience by the things he suffered; and having been made perfect, became unto all that follow him the author of eternal salvation." [31] He is represented as "made perfect through sufferings," as "tempted in all points like (?others) without sin," and as having without assistance of temple or sacrifices, "obtained eternal redemption" (ix. 12). Thus he also needed redemption. The new covenant of which Jesus was the founder is described in the words of Jeremiah (xxxi.): I will put my laws into their mind, And on their heart will I write them And I will be to them a God, And they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen, And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: For all shall know me, From the least unto the greatest. In quoting this the writer to the Hebrews adds: "In that he saith, 'A new (covenant) he hath made the first old. But that which is becoming old and waxeth aged is near unto vanishing entirely.'" Here is a primitive Quakerism, but more conservative; not like George Fox at once sweeping away priesthood sacraments and ecclesiastical laws before the Inner Light, but pointing to their near vanishing. The writer of this Epistle is a philosophical conservative; he shudders at the idea of a swift and complete overthrow of the traditional system, and even borrows its old thunders against levitical sin to menace offences against the new moral God. "Our God [also] is a consuming fire." It is evident by his very warnings that a great anti-sacerdotal and anti-levitical revolution had taken place, and that the free spirit was burgeoning out in excesses. But such is his culture that one may suspect his thunders of being theatrical, and that he thinks some superstition necessary for the masses.