As then Peter received the promise of the supreme episcopate _before all_ and _by himself_, under the terms that he should be the Rock, by being built on which the Church should never fall, that he should be the Bearer of the keys in the kingdom of heaven, and that _singly_ he should bind and loose in heaven and in earth; so _after_ his own Apostolate, and that of the rest had been completed, _by himself_, and as the crown of the divine work, he received the fulfilment of that supreme episcopate, under the terms, "Feed My lambs, be shepherd over My sheep." And as a part out of that magnificent promise made to him _singly_, was afterwards taken and made to the Apostles _jointly_ with him, for so "it was the design of Jesus Christ to put first in one alone what afterwards He meant to put in several; but the sequel does not reverse the beginning, nor the first lose his place. That first word, 'Whatsoever thou shalt bind,' said to one alone, has already ranged under his power each one of those to whom shall be said, 'Whatsoever ye shall remit;' for the promises of Jesus Christ, as well as His gifts, are without repentance; and what is once given indefinitely and universally is irrevocable:"[19] so when Peter and the rest already possessed the whole Apostolate, the commission to go and preach to the whole world, and to make disciples of all nations, a power was added to Peter to make up what was promised to him originally; the Apostles themselves, with the whole fold, were put under his charge; he represented the person of the Great Shepherd: and the divine work was complete. Thus the powers of the Apostolate and the Primacy are not antagonistic, but fit into, and harmonise with each other. In the college of the Twelve, as before inaugurated, and sent forth into the whole world, something had been wanting, save that, "by the appointment of a head, the occasion of schism was taken away:"[20] and Satan would have shaken the whole fabric, but that there was one divinely set to "confirm the brethren." He who "kept them" once, when "with them," by His personal presence, now kept them for evermore by the word of His power, issued on the shore of the lake of Galilee, but resounding through every age, clear and decisive, amid the fall of empires, and the change of races, and heard by all His flock to the utmost of the isles of the sea, till the day of the Son of Man comes,--"Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than these? Feed My lambs: Feed My sheep."