Angelic movers...

If it is difficult to justify such statements on the basis of a careful reading of the
Institutes, it is surely impossible to make them once the commentaries are brought into
consideration, especially his last works, notably the commentary on Ezekiel. There
Calvin argues the transmission of motion from God as first mover to the angelic movers
of the spheres and thence to the nexus of temporal causes and effects. The words of the
prophet "And when the living creatures proceeded, the wheels went beside them . . ."
indicated to Calvin that "all the changes in the world depend on celestial motion" and
that "the living creatures represent to us angels whom God inspires with a secret capacity
{virtus), so that he works by means of their hands." It is thus by the "motion and
inspiration" of the angelic movers that "things in themselves motionless are borne
along."'00 Calvin's fairly frequent use of terms for the "celestial machinery" (orbis machina
and caelestis machina) ought probably, therefore, to be understood as references
to this transmission of motion from God as First Mover through the spheres to the
order of nature.101

Quite significantly, in these last lectures, Calvin has more positive recourse to the
concepts of a divine agency in the order of the cosmos and of the mediation of divine
willing through the agency of secondary causes than he had evidenced in his earlier
works.102 Calvin writes:

Whenever the confusion of our affairs urges us to despair, let us try to remember this
sentiment, that the spirit of the living creatures is in the wheels. And truly, when we
tremble in doubtful circumstances, what can we do but acquiesce in this doctrine—
namely, that the end of everything will be as God decrees, because nothing is carried
on apart from his will, and that there is no motion, no agitation under the heavens,
unless he has inspired it by his angels. . . . On the whole, the Prophet here says that
angels so move all things that are done under heaven, that no proper motion ought
to be ascribed to them. And why? because God presides over them and govern their
actions.103

Richard Muller, The Unaccommodated Calvin, pgs. 156-7