V. VOLUNTARY SUBSTITUTION,

1. Recognizes the claims of law. We have supposed substitution wherein all parties are satisfied—all conflicts reconciled. But if the law were unjust, if the accused were not really guilty of a wrong, the act of condemning would be tyrannical. There could then be no satisfaction, either to justice, or to the condemned, or to his substitute. Hence, to obtain the desired result, there must be acquiescence in the justness of the proceeding, which is a recognition of the justice of the law which condemned.AERS 40.2

2. It honors and maintains the Government. It must be admitted that every infringement on the claims of law, every departure from strict justice, is a violation of common rights, and endangers the Government. Whatever honors and vindicates the claims of law and justice, tends to maintain the Government; and of course to vindicate personal rights under it. This voluntary substitution does, as has been shown.AERS 41.1

3. It dispenses mercy, which could not otherwise be offered consistently with the great principles of right and justice. Hence, all the objects of government—justice and mercy, truth and love,—meet in this arrangement. This is precisely the idea of an Atonement—not a thing to be deprecated, as some have vainly imagined, but to be loved and esteemed, as a certain vindication of right and justice, and a beneficent dispensation of love and mercy.AERS 41.2

In the examination of principles thus far we have found that the Atonement affects our relation to the Government in two respects, looking to the past and to the future. To the past, in that it frees from condemnation for past offenses; and to the future, in that it recognizes the claims of the law, thus binding us to future obedience to the law.AERS 41.3

But some affect to discover no harmony between these objects, though it is plain that a proposed Atonement which should lose sight of either of these would fail to unite justice and mercy; it would leave the sinner condemned, or dishonor the Government. It may, however, be noticed further,AERS 41.4