(2.) When a person stands at God’s tribunal, as we must suppose the sinner to do, when bringing in his plea for justification in his sight; then he has nothing else to plead but Christ’s righteousness; and faith is that grace that pleads it: and in that respect we are said to be justified by faith, or in a way of believing. Faith doth not justify by presenting or pleading itself, or any other grace that accompanies or flows from it, as the cause why God should forgive sin, or give us a right to eternal life; for they have not sufficient worth or excellency in them to procure these blessings. Therefore, when we are said to be justified by faith, it is by faith, as apprehending, pleading, or laying hold on Christ’s righteousness; and this gives occasion to divines to call it the instrument of our justification. Christ’s righteousness is the thing claimed or apprehended; and faith is that by which it is claimed or apprehended; and, agreeably to the idea of an instrument, we are said not to be justified for faith, but by it. Christ’s righteousness is that which procures a discharge from condemnation for all for whom it was wrought out; faith is the hand that receives it; whereby a person has a right to conclude, that it was wrought out for him. Christ’s righteousness is that which has a tendency to enrich and adorn the soul; and faith is the hand that receives it, whereby it becomes ours, in a way of fiducial application: and as the righteousness of Christ is compared, in scripture, to a glorious robe, which renders the soul beautiful, or is its highest and chief ornament; it is by faith that it is put on; and, in this respect, as the prophet speaks, its beauty is rendered _perfect through his comeliness, which is put upon him_, Ezek. xvi. 14. so that Christ’s righteousness justifies, as it is the cause of our discharge; faith justifies as the instrument that applies this discharge to us; thus when it is said, _the just shall live by faith_, faith is considered as that which seeks to, and finds this life in him; the effect is, by a metonymy, applied to the instrument; as when the husbandman is said to live or to be maintained by his plough, and the artist to live by his hands, or the beggar by his empty hand that receives the donative. If a person was in a dungeon, like the prophet Jeremiah, and a rope is let down to draw him out of it, his laying hold on it is the instrument, but the hand that draws him out, is the principal cause of his release from thence; or, that we may make use of a similitude that more directly illustrates the doctrine we are maintaining, suppose a condemned malefactor had a pardon procured for him, which gives him a right to liberty, or a discharge from the place of his confinement, this must be pleaded, and his claim be rendered visible; and after that he is no longer deemed a guilty person, but discharged, in open court, from the sentence that he was under. Thus