'Through the ministrations of angels': Calvin on Psalm 91

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As Michaelmas approaches, words from Calvin's commentary on Psalm 91:11-12, demonstrating how a lively understanding of the ministry of the angels was present in Reformed thought (as also seen in the writings of Bullinger):

The Psalmist adds, "all your ways" in the plural number, to convey to us more distinctly that wherever we go we may expect that the angels shall always extend their guardianship to us. The course of our life is subject to many windings and changes, and who can tell all the storms by which we are liable to be tossed? It was necessary, therefore, to know that the angels preside over all our particular actions and purposes, and thus to be assured of their safe-conduct in whatever quarter we might be called to move ...

"They shall bear thee upon their hands." He gives us a still higher idea of the guardianship of the angels, informing us, that they not only watch lest any evil should befall us, and are on the alert to extend assistance, but bear up our steps with their hands, so as to prevent us from stumbling in our course. Were we to judge indeed by mere appearances, the children of God are far from being thus borne up aloft in their career; often they labor and pant with exertion, occasionally they stagger and fall, and it is with a struggle that they advance in their course; but as in the midst of all this weakness it is only by the singular help of God that they are preserved every moment from falling and from being destroyed, we need not wonder that the Psalmist should speak in such exalted terms of the assistance which they receive through the ministrations of angels. Never, besides, could we surmount the serious obstacles which Satan opposes to our prayers, unless God should bear us up in the manner here described.

(The picture is of stained glass from St-Pierre Cathedral, Geneva: the stained glass was untouched at the Reformation.)

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