Now! Then! The preacher Thomas Sharp compares New Year revellers in Leeds to the pagan Jews in Babylon

1 January 1680: The preacher Thomas Sharp compares New Year revellers in Leeds to the pagan Jews in Babylon

Ralph Thoresby. 1830. The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., Vol. 1/2. Ed. Joseph Hunter. London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley. Get it:

Excerpt

Mr Sharp, from Jeremiah 30:7, showed what reason we have to expect and therefore provide for such a day as the prophet speaks of: how many present themselves as a new year’s gift to Satan by their vain mirth and jollity upon this day, which custom was derived from the heathens, who then sacrificed to their idol Janus: but we should labour to present ourselves as a spotless sacrifice to God.

Order the book

Subscribe to the free daily email

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

Jeremiah 30:7 in the KJV: “Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.” I now need a description and an illustration of what people actually got up to in Leeds-Babylon on that day. Thomas Sharp was minister to the dissenting congregation on Mill Hill from 1677 until his death in 1693, which deeply affected Thoresby, as had the death of his own father two months previously.

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

Mr. Sharp, from Jer. xxx. 7, showed what reason we have to expect and therefore provide for such a day as the Prophet speaks of: how many present themselves as a new year’s gift to Satan by their vain mirth and jollity upon this day, which custom was derived from the Heathens, who then sacrificed to their idol Janus: but we should labour to present ourselves as a spotless sacrifice to God.

74 words.