laudable Practice

It appertaineth to the Office of a Deacon, in the Church where he shall be appointed to serve, to assist the Priest in Divine Service ... When the fifth question at the Ordering of Deacons sets forth the wider duties of the diaconate, William White - in his Commentaries Suited to Occasions of Ordination (1833) - raises the issue of a permanent diaconate as a means of providing for divine service, sermons, and Holy Baptism in communities where it would be impracticable to have an incumbent: But the institution would be still more useful in places in which, because of the small number or the poverty of the people, there can be no permanent provision for a minister devoting his whole time to the service of the sanctuary; an evil, which would be in some measure remedied by the appointment to the deaconship of a proper character, wherever it should offer, with the view not only of his distributing to the poor, but further, for the reading of the Scriptures and discourses, and for baptizin...

Will you diligently read the same unto the people assembled in the Church where you shall be appointed to serve? Answer. I will. Addressing the fourth question in the Ordering of Deacons, William White's Commentaries Suited to Occasions of Ordination (1833) points to how patristic accounts regularly emphasise the significance of the public reading of holy Scripture in the liturgies "of the primitive Church": Of the many marks manifested by this Church, of her being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, there may be considered the importance which she gives to the public reading of the Holy Scriptures, as not one of the least. There is no branch of the service of the primitive Church more demonstrative than this. In the apology of Justin Martyr, edited within half a century of the decease of the last of the apostles; and in the account which the apologists gives of the worship of the Christian assemblies of his day, this is distinctly noticed, as a part of...