If we take the passages addressed to Peter singly, that is, Matt. xvi. 17-19, Luke xxii. 31, 32, John xxi. 15-17, we find a power of Headship superadded to the former power which had been conveyed to the Apostles as a College. This Headship is conveyed in various expressions, such as the Rock on which the divine House is built, while to it the promise of perpetual stability is attached; the Keys, which indicate the supreme power in the divine Kingdom; the power to bind and to loose everything in heaven and earth, as given not to a collective Body, but to one singly, which distinction in the terms of the grant greatly enlarges the authority of the recipient by removing all restraint arising from common action; the Confirming the brethren in the divine Family; the Pastorship of the divine Flock. Each of these five things indicates sovereignty; together they express it with cumulative evidence: but each of these five things also indicates not collective sovereignty given to a college of men, but the sovereignty proper to a single person. These passages in three several Evangelists addressed to Peter singly correspond to each other even more closely than the former class of passages corresponds to each other, and the power conveyed in them is a power more definitely marked than the power conveyed in the other. Again, the two classes of passages, as given in the several Evangelists, may be separately compared in the case of each; as Matt. xxviii. 18-20, given to the College, with Matt. xvi. 17-19, promised to the individual; as Luke xxiv. 46-49 and Acts i. 3-9, as said to all, with Luke xxii. 31, 32, prophesied of Peter singly; and, lastly, the various words addressed to the Apostles collectively in the discourse after the Last Supper, and the gift of the Holy Ghost breathed on them together in John xx. 21-23, with the charge to Peter alone recorded in John xxi. 15-17. The result of the most careful and accurate comparison will be to see that the full power given to the Apostolic College in the concluding words of St. Matthew's Gospel is not interfered with by the Headship promised to Peter in chap. xvi. 17-19: that in Luke, the power from on high, and again the power of the Holy Ghost coming down upon the Apostolic College, do not exclude the confirming power promised to one of them: that in John, the universal Apostolic mission and the imparting of the Holy Ghost, bestowed by Christ upon the Apostles in common, so far from being opposed to the universal Pastorship conferred upon Peter by our Lord on the shore of the lake, receive as it were their completion and crown in the privileges of the Head.