significant is the incident immediately following, when our Lord orders him to go to the sea, to cast a hook, and to bring up a fish, which shall have a stater in his mouth, adding, "take that, and give it to them for Me, and for thee:" a token of preference so strong, and of association so singular, that it set the Apostles on the immediate enquiry, who should be the greater among them: the answer to which we will revert to presently. And this designation of Peter to his high and singular office becomes even more striking, if we contrast what our Lord did and said to him with what He did and said to another Apostle, who _in another way_ is even in some respects preferred to Peter himself. For "the disciple whom Jesus loved," who lay on His breast at supper, to whom was committed at the most sorrowful of all moments the domestic care of the Virgin Mother, has in the affection of our Lord his own unapproachable sphere. But as Peter does not come into competition with him here, so neither in another view he with Peter. His distinction is private, and in the nature of personal affection: Peter's is public, and in the nature of Church government. To one is committed the Mother of the Lord, the living symbol of the Church, the most blessed of all creatures, and that, when her full dignity and blessedness stood at length revealed in the full Godhead of her Son, yet whose throne was intercessory, apart from rule on earth: to the other is committed the Church herself, her championship in the time of conflict, the rudder of the vessel on the lake, till with Christ it should reach the shore. Each of these, so eminent and unapproachable in his way, has that way apart; and when Peter, on receiving his final commission, turned about and saw his best-loved friend following, and ventured to ask, "Lord, and what shall this man do?" our Lord replied with something like a reproof, "what is that to thee? Follow thou Me." These distinct preferences of the two Apostles were indicated by Tertullian, when he wrote, "Was anything concealed from Peter, who was named the rock on which the Church should be built, who received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the power to bind and loose in heaven and on earth? Was anything, too, concealed from John, the most beloved of the Lord, who lay upon His breast, to whom alone the Lord foresignified the traitor Judas, whom He committed in His own place as Son to Mary?"[13]