³¹ I do not regard Job so much as a _type_, but rather as a _sample_. His calling was the common calling, as a dead and risen man. Every saint, now gathering for heavenly glory, is such. Israel in the latter day will be as such, and the whole system of the millennial age. The Lord Jesus holds all things, and exercises His offices, as the One that was dead and is alive again. But I judge it to be more fitting to speak of Job as a sample of the common calling, than as a type. I could not, however, object to the expression, were it used by others. Job learnt his lesson through sufferings. The Lord, I may say, did the same. Hebrews ii. iv. v. He was made perfect for His high functions in that way. Christ’s compassions could not have been _priestly_, till He became a man, partaker of the flesh and blood of the children, and suffered as such. And Job’s history may be read as the expression or foreshadowing of all this. So Israel. They will be as a people who, having destroyed themselves, have found their help in God. Hosea presents them in that character. Their language in chapter xiv. is the language of such a people. And Job’s history may be regarded as the expression or foreshadowing of this also. He revives, he grows again as the lily, and his branches spread, at the end, as Israel and Israel’s branches will, according to their prophet. So that we may speak of Job as a type. But I still feel and judge it to be more fitting, to present him as a sample of us all, in the common faith, as dead and risen with Christ. Such was our Patriarch in "the end of the Lord." Another witness he is that the burning bush is never consumed, because of the good-will of Him who dwells in it. It may be Israel in Egypt, or in Babylon, the children in the furnace, or the prophet in the den. It may be a poor elect Gadarene, beset with a legion, or the patriarch, the sport of wind and fire and bodily disease, of Chaldeans and Sabeans too, the power and messengers of Satan let out upon him, still the burning bush is unconsumed for the goodwill of Him who dwells in it. "We had the sentence of death in ourselves," says the apostle, as speaking in the name of them all, "that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead."