a. [f. prec. + -AL.]
1. Theol. Of or pertaining to, based upon the principle of, sacrificial substitution.
1786. A. M‘Lean, Commiss. Christ, III. Wks. 1847, I. 218. This points out the vicarious and substitutional nature of his death. Ibid. (a. 1812), Merit. Ground Justif., ibid. III. 283. The merit and substitutional nature of Christ’s obedience to the moral law throughout his life.
1893. New Church Mess. (N. Y.), 19 April, 244. This mercenary, substitutional theory of the atonement.
1897. Advance (Chicago), 4 Feb., 155/2. We need the divine sympathy, substitutional, because the Christ was tempted in all points as we are.
2. Involving a substitution; constituting or forming a substitute.
1820. J. Foster, Ess. Evils Pop. Ignor., 166. While thus thrown loose from the former ties to the social order, their minds have not been seized upon to be put under the substitutional ones which sound instruction alone could impose.
1883. Pall Mall Gaz., 30 May, 1/2. If he considered that he would not be fairly compensated under any substitutional private agreement.
1884. Law Times Rep., L. 619/2. Sect. 3 of the Act of 1878 … is substitutional for sect. 62 of the Act of 1875.
1884. C. Rogers, Soc. Life Scot., x. II. 19. As a substitutional officer James I. appointed a Master of the Household.
1895. H. Reynolds, Anc. Dioc. Exeter, v. 127. This is the Pontifical of Edmund Lacy, a substitutional improvement on the order of Episcopal offices [etc.].
b. Law.
1883. Law Rep., 23 Chanc. Div. 738. W. Pearson, Q. C.,… submitted that … the gift … was an original and not substitutional gift.
1894. Daily News, 3 May, 5/3. In other words, were the gifts substitutional or cumulative?
Hence Substitutionally adv.
1874. Withrow, Catacombs of Rome (1877), 355. The Almighty Father, who is substitutionally represented by the Son in the adjoining scene.
1908. C. A. Strong, in Ess. in honor of W. James, 172. It [the object] is not immediately (i. e., without medium) but substitutionally known—known by the projection of a present experience, as truly possessed of definite qualities as the past experience it knows.
