Repentance, it is allowed, like all other spiritual exercises, has its counterfeit, and which is not spiritual; but neither is it that which God requires at the hands of either saints or sinners. What is called natural, and sometimes legal, repentance, is merely a sorrow on account of consequences. Such was the repentance of Saul and Judas.

In order to evade the argument arising from the addresses of John the Baptist, of Christ and his apostles, who called upon the Jewish people “to repent and believe the gospel,” it has been alleged that it was only an outward repentance and acknowledgment of the truth to which they were exhorted, and not that which is spiritual, or which has the promise of spiritual blessings. But it would be difficult, if not impossible, to prove that such repentance and faith are any where required of sinners, or that it is consistent with the Divine perfections to require them. An outward repentance and reformation of manners, as distinguished from that which consists in godly sorrow, is only repentance in appearance. Whatever sorrow there is in it, it is not on account of sin, but its consequences; and to suppose that Christ or his servants required this would be doing them infinite dishonour. It is no other than supposing them to have betrayed the authority of God over the human heart, to have sanctioned hypocrisy, and to have given counsels to sinners which, if taken, would leave them still exposed to everlasting destruction.

The case of the Ninevites has been alleged as furnishing an example of that repentance which is the duty of men in general, and which Christ and his apostles required of the Jews. I do not know that the repentance of the Ninevites was genuine, or connected with spiritual blessings; neither do my opponents know that it was not. Probably the repentance of some of them was genuine, while that of the greater part might be only put on in conformity to the orders of government; or, at most, merely as the effect of terror. But whatever it was, even though none of it were genuine, the object professed was godly sorrow for sin; and if God treated them upon the supposition of their being sincere, and it repented him of the evil which he had threatened, it is no more than he did to Pharaoh, Abijah, Ahab, and others.* It is a very unjust conclusion to draw from his conduct, that their repentance was such as he approved, and the whole which he required at their hands. So far from it, there might be nothing in any of them which could approve itself to him as the searcher of hearts: and though for wise reasons he might think it proper, in those instances, to overlook their hypocrisy, and to treat them on the supposition of their repentance being what they professed it to be; yet he might still reserve to himself the power of judging them at the last day according to their works.

The object of John the Baptist was not to effect a mere outward reformation of manners; but to “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Such was the effect actually produced by his ministry, and by that of Christ and the apostles. The repentance which they called upon sinners to exercise was such as entitled those who possessed it to Christian “baptism,” and which had the promise of “the remission of sins,” Mark 1:4; Acts 2:38.

It is plainly intimated by the apostle Paul, that all repentance except that which worketh in a way of godly sorrow, and which he calls repentance to salvation, needs to be repented of. It is the mere sorrow of the world, which worketh death, 2 Cor. 7:10. But that which requires to be repented of cannot be commanded of God, or constitute any part of a sinner’s duty. The duty of every transgressor is to be sorry at heart for having sinned.

Fuller, A. G. (1988). The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Controversial Publications (J. Belcher, Ed.; Vol. 2, pp. 364–365). Sprinkle Publications.