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Whereupon the venerable assembly of the Fathers understood that by
Divine Providence a general rule had been fixed for the congregations of
the brethren through the angel's direction, and so decreed that this number
should be preserved both in their evening and in their nocturnal services;
and when they added to these two lessons, one from the Old and one from the
New Testament, they added them simply as extras and of their own
appointment, only for those who liked, and who were eager to gain by
constant study a mind well stored with Holy Scripture. But on Saturday and
Sunday they read them both from the New Testament; viz., one from the
Epistles or the Acts of the Apostles, and one from the Gospel. And
this also those do whose concern is the reading and the recollection of the
Scriptures, from Easter to Whitsuntide.
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