No sooner [28]then had our Lord in this manner pointed out that there should be one hereafter to take His place on earth and to be the Ruler of his brethren, expressing at the same time the toilsome nature of the trust, and the duty of exercising it with the spirit which He, the great model, had shown, than turning His discourse from the Apostles, whom hitherto He had addressed in common, to Peter singly, He proceeded to designate Peter as that one, to assure him of a singular privilege, and to enforce upon him a proportionate duty. And first a break in the hitherto continuous discourse is ushered in by the words, "And the Lord said," and what follows is fixed to Peter specially, by the reiteration of his name, "Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat:" to have _you_, that is not Peter alone, but all the Apostles, the same you, whom in the preceding verses He had so often repeated, "you not so," "but I am in the midst of you," "but you are they that have continued with Me," "and I dispose to you a kingdom," "that you may eat and drink with Me;" and what follows? What was the resource provided by the Lord against this attack of the great enemy on all His fold? "But I have prayed for _thee_, that _thy_ faith fail not: and thou being once converted confirm thy brethren." Not "I have prayed for _you_," where all were assaulted, "that _your_ faith fail not," but I have prayed for _thee_, Peter, that _thy_ faith fail not! Nothing can be more emphatic than this change of number, when our Lord throughout all His previous discourse had used the plural, and now continuing the plural to designate the persons attacked, uses the singular to specify the person for whom He has prayed, and to whom He assures a singular privilege, the fruit of that prayer. Nothing could more strongly prove that this address was special to Peter.