The tithe finds an interesting parallel in sacrifice with which it is closely connected. For when one is commanded to sacrifice, the minimum at least must be set to his sacrifice. Sacrifice, I believe, was a divine institution given to our first parents in Eden. Most likely the tithe is seen, in germ at least, in the offerings of Cain and Abel. The Council of Seville viewed Cain’s sin as one of covetousness in withholding a portion of the tithe or part that God required. The Septuagint reading of Gen. 4:7, which the early Church Fathers seem invariably to adopt, and a literal translation of Heb. 11:4 point to this view. Personally I like to translate the latter “more of a sacrifice” which is simple and includes both the idea of quantity and that of quality and spirit. Wickliffe translated it “a much more sacrifice.” Westcott maintains that this is correct. The critical scholars generally admit that such is the natural rendering, but claim not to be able to see why such a thing should be said. Covetousness played so prominent a part in the parent’s fall, why should it not in the son’s sin, seeing that it is one of the most persistent of the Satan brood? Dr. John Brown, in his Commentary on Hebrews, Vol. II., page 41, quotes another who says: “It is easy to be demonstrated that sacrifices owe their original to the will and appointment of God. The Apostle says, as Moses said before him, that Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God. But it would not have been acceptable if it had not been of divine institution, according to that plain, obvious and eternal maxim of all true religion, Christian, Mosaic, and natural, ‘In vain do they worship God, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men,’ Mark 7:7. If there be any truth in this maxim, Abel would have worshipped God in vain, and God would have had no respect to his offering, if his sacrifice had been merely a commandment of his father Adam, or an invention of his own. The divine acceptance, therefore, is a demonstration of a divine institution.” This line of argument is almost unanimously accepted among Christian scholars as an adequate basis for the belief that sacrifice was a divine institution. Why is it not fully as applicable to tithing? It is not stated in Scripture, prior to the giving of the Mosaic law, that either is a divine institution. But if “divine acceptance is a demonstration of a divine institution,” the tithe has as clear a demonstration of its origin as has sacrifice. Now and then in Scripture the whole business of sacrifice is spoken of in a deprecating way. Cf. Heb. 10. Such is not the case in respect to the tithe, unless Amos 4:4 be so taken.