At length, then, we have before us the whole evidence of the Gospels, and having considered it piece by piece, may now take a general view. It is time to gather up the several parts of this evidence, and, claiming for each its due force, to present the sum of all before the mind. For distinct and decisive as certain texts appear, and are, even by themselves, yet when they are seen to fit into a whole system, and perfectly to harmonise together, they have much greater power to convince the mind, which really seeks for truth. But moral evidences generally, and especially that which results from a study of the Holy Scripture, is not intended to move a mind in a lower condition than this; a mind, that is, which loves something else better than the truth. Thus, out of the body of His disciples, we see our Lord choosing Twelve, and again, out of those Twelve, distinguishing One by the most singular favours. This distinction even begins _before_ the selection of the Twelve, and has its root in the very commencement of our Lord's ministry: for, as we have seen, it was when Andrew first led his brother Simon before Christ, that He "looked upon him," and promised him the prophetic name which revealed his Primacy, and his perpetual relation to the Church of God. The name thus promised is in due time bestowed, and solemnly recorded by the three Evangelists, at the appointment of the Apostles, as the reason why he is invariably set at their head; Matthew, still more distinctly expressing in it his primacy, "_the first_, Simon, who is called Peter." And their whole mode of mentioning him, and exhibiting his relation to the other apostles, shews that this Primacy was, when they wrote, ever in their minds. It comes out in the most incidental way, as when Mark writes, "Simon, and they that were with him, followed after" Christ; or Luke, "Peter, and they that were with him, said;" as naturally as they write, "David, and those that were with him:" or of our Lord Himself, and the Apostles, "those that had been with Him."[10] Again this preference of Peter is shewn by our Lord, both at the Transfiguration and the Agony: where, even when the two next favoured of the Apostles are associated with Him as witnesses, yet there is evidence of Peter's superiority in the mode with which the Evangelists mention him. Great as the dignity was of the two sons of thunder, they are yet ranged under Peter by Luke, with that same phrase which we have just been considering. "Peter, and they that were with him were heavy with sleep." And our Lord, at the agony, says to Peter, "could not _you_," that is, all the three, "watch with Me one hour?"[11] Again, how incidentally, yet markedly, does Matthew shew that this superiority of Peter over others was apparent even to strangers, when he writes, that the officers who collected the tribute for the temple, came to _him_, and said, "does not _your_ master" (the master of all the Apostles,) "pay the didrachma?"[12] Much more