“Ought a wicked man to pray?”

The declaimer who denied this position seems to have had an eye to those passages of Scripture which declare “the sacrifice and way of the wicked to be an abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 15:8, 9;) and to have concluded from them that God does not require any sacrifice or prayer at their hands. But, if so, why did Peter exhort the sorcerer to pray? Acts 8:22. And wherefore is the fury of God denounced against the families that call not upon his name? Jer. 10:25. An hypothesis which flies in the face of the express language of Scripture is inadmissible, and the framer of it, to be consistent, should avow himself an infidel.

If he meant only to deny that God requires such prayers as wicked men actually offer, the prayer of a hard, impenitent, and unbelieving heart, I have no controversy with him. God cannot possibly approve any thing of this kind. But then the same is true of every other duty. Wicked men do nothing that is well-pleasing to God; nothing which is aimed at his glory, or done in obedience to his authority; every thing that is done is done for selfish ends. If they read the Scriptures, it is not to know the will of God and do it; or, if they hear the word, it is not with any true desire to profit by it. Even their pursuit of the common good things of this life is that they may consume them upon their lusts; hence the very “ploughing of the wicked is sin,” Prov. 21:4. Yet the declaimer himself would scarcely infer from hence that it is not their duty to read the word of God, nor attend to the preaching of the gospel, nor pursue the necessary avocations of life; neither would he reckon it absurd to exhort them to such exercises as these.

The truth is, wicked men are required to do all these things, not carnally, but with a right end and a right spirit. In this way Simon Magus, though “in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity,” was exhorted to pray; not with a hard and impenitent heart, but with a spirit of true contrition. “Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee.” To repent and pray is the Same thing in effect as to pray penitently, or with a contrite spirit. Wicked men are required to read and hear the word, but not with a wicked spirit; and to plough the soil, but not that they may consume its produce upon their lusts.

There are not two sorts of requirements, or two standards of obedience, one for good men, and the other for wicked men; the revealed will of God is one and the same, however differently creatures may stand affected towards it. The same things which are required of the righteous, as repentance, faith, love, prayer, and praise, are required of the wicked, John 12:36; Acts 3:19; Rev. 15:4. If it were not so, and the aversion of the heart tended to set aside God’s authority over it, it must of necessity follow that a sinner can never be brought to repentance, except it be for the commission of those sins which might have been avoided consistently with the most perfect enmity against God! And this is to undermine all true repentance; for the essence of true repentance is “godly sorrow,” or sorrow for having displeased and dishonoured God. But if, in a state of unregeneracy, a man were under no obligation to please God, he must of course have been incapable of displeasing him; for where no law is, there is no transgression. The consequence is, he can never be sorry at heart for having displeased him; and as there would be but little if any ground for repentance towards God, so there would be but little if any need of faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. If in a state of unregeneracy he were under no obligation to do any thing pleasing to God, and were so far rendered incapable of doing any thing to displease him, so far he must be sinless, and therefore stand in no need of a Saviour. Where there is no obligation, there can be no offence; and where there is no offence, there needs no forgiveness. Thus the notions of this declaimer, who, I suppose, would be thought very evangelical, will be found subversive of the first principles of the gospel.

Fuller, A. G. (1988). “The Prayer of the Wick,” Answers and Queries. The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Expositions—Miscellaneous (J. Belcher, Ed.; Vol. 3, pp. 772–773). Sprinkle Publications.