Strange to say, many of the complaints about Calvin's doctrine of the atonement are actually pre-empted in his writing on it in the Institutes. So, for example, he establishes that God's wrath and God's love are not incompatible; and that the willing obedience of the Son is involved (not the abused innocent child of modern caricature).
Two nice sections from him:
This is our acquittal: the guilt that held us liable for punishment has been transferred to the head of the Son of God. We must above all remember this substitution, lest we tremble and remain anxious throughout life – as if God's righteous vengeance, which the Son of God has taken upon himself, still hung over us. Institutes II.16.v
Later, commenting on the cry of dereliction, he writes:
...we do not suggest that God was ever inimical or angry toward him. How could he be angry toward his beloved Son...? How could Christ by his intercession appease the Father toward others, if he were himself hateful to God? This is what we are saying: he bore the weight of divine severity, since he was 'stricken and afflicted' by God's hand and experienced all the signs of a wrathful and avenging God. II.16.xi
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