Some have broached out of Socinus a most uncomfortable and desperate doctrine, that late repentance, that is, upon the last bed of sickness, is unfruitful, at least to reconcile the penitent to God.
This no doubt refers to Jeremy Taylor's work on Repentance, and is but too faithful a description of its character.
Ib. p. 373.
A little after the King was beheaded, Mr. Atkins met this priest in London, and going into a tavern with him, said to him in his familiar way, "What business have you here? I warrant you come about some roguery or other." Whereupon the priest told it him as a great secret, that there were thirty of them here in London, who by instructions from Cardinal Mazarine, did take care of such affairs, and had sat in council, and debated the question, whether the King should be put to death or not;—and that it was carried in the affirmative, and there were but two voices for the negative, which was his own and another's; and that for his part, he could not concur with them, as foreseeing what misery this would bring upon his country. Mr. Atkins stood to the truth of this, but thought it a violation of the laws of friendship to name the man.
Richard Baxter was too thoroughly good for any experience to make him worldly wise; else, how could he have been simple enough to suppose, that Mazarine would leave such a question to be voted
pro
and
con
, and decided by thirty emissaries in London! And, how could he have reconciled Mazarine's having any share in Charles's death with his own masterly account, pp. 98, 99, 100? Even Cromwell, though he might have prevented, could not have effected, the sentence. The regicidal judges were not his creatures. Consult the Life of Colonel Hutchinson upon this.