Now, have we any reason for thinking that God also combines, in their highest forms, these two attributes of mercy and justice? Certainly we have; for, as shown in Chapter V., the goodness of God includes both _beneficence_ and _righteousness_; and these general terms, when applied to the case of judging sinners, closely correspond to mercy and justice. God, as we have seen, combines both, and both are required by the Christian doctrine. Mercy alone would have forgiven men without any atonement; justice alone would not have forgiven them at all. But God is both merciful and just, and therefore the idea that voluntary atonement might incline Him to mercy rather than justice does not seem incredible. And this is precisely the Christian doctrine. The mercy of God the Father is obtained for sinful man by Christ's generous sacrifice of Himself on man's behalf; so that, to put it shortly, _God forgives sins for Christ's sake_. And it should be noticed, the idea of sins being _forgiven_ which occurs all through the New Testament, and is alluded to in the Apostles' Creed, shows that Christ's Atonement was not that of a mere substitute, for then no forgiveness would have been necessary. If, for example, I owe a man a sum of money, and a friend pays it for me, I do not ask the man to forgive me the debt; I have no need of any forgiveness. But if, instead of paying it, he merely intercedes for me, then the man may forgive me the debt for my friend's sake. And in this way, though Christ did not, strictly speaking, bear man's _punishment_ (which would have been eternal separation from God), His sufferings and death may yet have procured man's _pardon_; He suffered on our behalf, though not in our stead. And some Atonement was certainly necessary to show God's _hatred for sin_, and to prevent His Character from being misunderstood in this respect. And it probably would have been so, if men had been forgiven without any Atonement, when they might have thought that sin was not such a very serious affair after all. (3.) _As to the sinner._ Lastly, the willingness of the victim affects the sinner also. For if the changed attitude of the judge is due, not to his justice being satisfied, but to his mercy being appealed to, this is plainly conditional on a _moral change_ in the sinner himself. A good man suffering for a criminal would not alter our feelings towards him, if he still chose to remain a criminal. And this exactly agrees with the Christian doctrine, which is that sinners cannot expect to avail themselves of Christ's Atonement if they wilfully continue in sin; so that _repentance_ is a necessary condition of forgiveness. Therefore instead of having a bad influence on the sinners themselves; it has precisely the opposite effect.