We forget when we use the word ‘God’ that, as Milton said, ‘his state is kingly.’ A king is not a solitary individual. He has a court, a retinue, a band of faithful followers. Whether he is Charlemagne, William Duke of Normandy or King Canute, his entourage gives effect to his biddings. He does not do the whole job by himself. Like Sir Christopher Wren, he has capable assistants in the enterprise to which he turns his hand.
Blind as he was, Milton felt lonely. His gifts were seemingly unused. He felt unappreciated. But patience reminded him that he was but one of the Maker’s assistants. ‘Thousands at his bidding speed… They also serve who only stand and wait.’ Here we are introduced to angels, not a common part of the Christian faith today. Indeed we may find any mention of angels embarrassing. But beware. If we believe in God’s providence, can we call to mind any better understanding of it than forces deployed alongside the rest of the created order to serve the Maker’s purposes? We are not required to believe in diaphanous creatures as we find them in Pope’s ‘Rape of the Lock’ bringing their influence to bear on brittle sheltered ladies who flirt and swoon. Milton himself presented a more robust and forceful view of angels in his ‘Paradise Lost’. One way or another we are invited to consider what we might call the Maker’s 24/7 maintenance corps keeping the machine in working order.
Another major poet, Spenser, has an elegant aside in which he interprets this concept. ‘And is there care in heaven?’ he asks. He answers: ‘How oft do they, their silver bowers, leave to come to succour us, that succour want?’ Mere poetry, we may say; we know better than that in the 21st century. But we readily agree that the language of love is poetry. We may also say that a poetic understanding of the created order and man’s place within it is preferable to a prosaic one. In other words, Milton and Spenser, though they were men of their day, were on to something. As another poet put it\;’There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
When we think of God, we use courtly terms: king, lord, majesty. It is a small step to envisage an entourage with the capability to discharge orders and give expression to the providential activity of the Maker. We may be dubious about the concept of angels. We may prefer the play of emotional forces. We may be wary of the imagination. So be it. We should not repudiate off-hand a mode of thinking that came naturally to the biblical writers. They majored on angelic activity. We must consider the possibility that they are on to something.
Nor should we be unaware of the vocabulary we are happy to own. When we think of addiction, we refer to demons. Nurses make us think of angels. When we call to mind malice, we think of trolls. We are nearer our forebears than we may think.
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