35. Outline of the Sermon Preached by Ezra Ripley at the Sixtieth Anniversary of His Ordination

Ezra Ripley (1751-1841) was ordained on November 7, 1778, and installed as minister of the First Church and Parish of Concord, Massachusetts, which he would serve until his death. He preached this sermon from these notes on November 11, 1838, to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of his ordination. In 1780 Ripley had married Phoebe Emerson, the widow of William Emerson (1743-76), and was, therefore the step-grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82). What is interesting about these notes is that he has crossed out his notes on “the singular opinions recently published among us” (bottom of p. 2) and replaced them with a different line of argument (top of p. 3). In both instances, he is obviously referring to the transcendentalist ideas of a number of younger thinkers, including his step-grandson (whose controversial address before the Senior Class at Harvard Divinity School had been delivered on July 15th of that year and was soon thereafter published).