This day shall be to you for a memorial. Annual festivals, in commemoration of events believed to have happened, were common in the religion of Egypt, and probably not wholly strange to the religious ideas of the Hebrews.
(See the "Introduction" to this chapter.) They were now required to make the 14th of Abib such a day, and to observe it continually year after year "throughout their generations." There is commendable faithfulness in the obedience still rendered to the command at the present day; and it must be confessed that the strong expression—throughout your generations and as an ordinance for ever—excuse to a great extent the reluctance of the Jews to accept Christianity.
They have already, however, considerably varied from the terms of the original appointment. May they not one day see that the Passover will still be truly kept by participation in the Easter eucharist, wherein Christians feed upon "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world"—the antitype, of which the Paschal lamb was the type—the true sustenance of souls—the centre and source of all real unity—the one "perfect and sufficient sacrifice, and oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world"?
The Church requires an Easter communion of all her members, proclaims that on that day, Christ our passover being slain, we are to keep the feast; and thus, so far as in her lies, maintains the festival as "an ordinance for ever," to be observed through all her generations.