Some Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics on Twitter on Tuesday - the feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Roman tradition - could be found suggesting that Thomas Ken believed in the Immaculate Conception because of a verse in his poem ' Sion: or, Philothea ': The Holy Ghost his Temple in her built, Cleans’d from congenial, kept from mortal Guilt; And from the Moment that her Blood was fired Into her Heart celestial Love inspir’d. Colin Podmore - the former Director of Forward in Faith and editor of an excellent collection of Roger Greenacre's Marian writings - has stated rather straight-forwardly that Ken is here affirming the Immaculate Conception: This is poetry, not prose, but surely we have here the doctrine that at the moment of her conception – ‘the Moment that her Blood was fired’ – Mary was cleansed from original sin in order that she might become the mother of Our Lord. More cautiously, Paul Williams in Mary: The Complete Resource suggests that this "a...
Old High - Burkean - clerk in holy orders