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 an inward voice bidding him recant. Accordingly, about two months later, he addressed to Cromwell a letter of recantation, which obtained him his liberty. He returned to the country, repurchased his land, and lived quietly. Though he professed to expect to ‘come forth with a greater power,’ he was not heard of again.

[The Declaration of John Robins, the false prophet … and Joshua Beck and John King, the two false disciples. … By G. H., an ear-witness, 1651; Ranters of both Sexes … by John Taylor, 1651; Reeve and Muggleton's Transcendent Spirituall Treatise, 1652; A List of some of the Grand Blasphemers and Blasphemies, 1654; Muggleton's Acts of the Witnesses, 1699, pp. 20 sq., 45 sq.] 

ROBINS, SANDERSON (1801–1862), divine and writer on education, the second son of Matthew Robins of St. Mary's, Newington, Surrey, was born in 1801, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford, whence he matriculated on 28 Oct. 1818, graduated B.A. in 1823 and M.A. in 1825. In 1826 he was appointed rector of Edmonsham, Dorset, in 1840 of Shaftesbury, and in 1854 of St. James's, Dover. From 1856 to his death, on 5 Dec. 1862, he was vicar of St. Peter's in the Isle of Thanet. He was a broad churchman and an educational enthusiast. In his most interesting publication, ‘A Letter to … Lord John Russell on the Necessity and Mode of State Assistance in the Education of the People,’ 1851, 8vo (2nd edit. the same year), Robins advocated state education on the lines subsequently carried out in the act of 1870, and suggested that religious teaching ‘should stop short of the doctrinal differences which divide Christians.’ The adoption of such teaching in parish schools would, he argued, involve Anglicans in no sacrifice of principle.

Robins also published: 1. ‘Some Reasons against the Revival of Convocation,’ 1850, 8vo. 2. ‘The Church Schoolmaster,’ 1850, 8vo. 3. ‘An Argument for the Royal Supremacy,’ Pickering, 1851, 8vo. 4. ‘The Whole Evidence against the Claims of the Roman Church,’ 1855, 8vo; a work evincing solid historical learning. 5. ‘On Party Spirit in the English Church,’ 1860, 12mo. 6. ‘A Defence of the Faith,’ 1862, 8vo. 7. ‘Twenty Reasons for accepting the Revised Educational Code,’ 1862, 8vo.

[Works in Brit. Mus. Libr.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1714–1886; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; McClintock and Strong's Cyclopædia; Foster's Index Eccl.] 