RESOLUTION OF SYNOD.
THE Synod of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, convened in Glasgow on the 17th day of May, 1955, resolved to inform our people at home and abroad (and all concerned) that our Church took no part whatever in the recent so-called “All-Scotland Crusade” by Pastor William Graham and his “Team” from the United States of America.
First, because we had no previous knowledge of Pastor William Graham and his Team and their attitude to and beliefs re the Word of God.
Second: from reading and paying careful attention to Mr. Graham’s practice and methods in requesting his hearers to decide for Christ we are now convinced that our cautious attitude was correct and in strict accordance with our Ordination vows in not associating ourselves, and our people, with that movement or any similar movement.
It seems to us that the preaching was similar with the Wesleyan and D. L. Moody’s Arminianism, which the conservative divines rejected and condemned as contrary to the doctrines of free and sovereign grace. We accept the trenchant exposure and condemnation of Arminianism as preached by John Wesley, Moody, and others by such eminent divines as Rev. Augustus Toplady and Dr. John Kennedy of Dingwall, Ross-shire. We believe that the doctrines preached in Kelvin Hall were from the same school as Wesley and Moody. We reject the soul-destroying teaching of Arminians.
Young and old were requested to make a “decision for Christ” as if it were in the power of the lost sinner to believe in Christ without the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing.”
As far as we know Pastor William Graham’s belief in the Inspiration and Infallibility of the Bible is unknown.
While we earnestly desire and pray that God, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, would graciously favour our nation, and all nations, with a day of saving repentance by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to turn the people to the Word of God as recorded in Zeph: “For then I will turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one consent”; until this happens we need not look, or expect, that sinners will turn to the Word of God and to the true religion and to the practice of true godliness.
We are thankful to the Lord Jesus for His gracious care over us and our people in these perilous times, when false teaching and doctrines like a deadly plague have eaten into the very vitals of our holy religion, Reformation attainments, and the practice of true godliness.
“Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the LORD” (Ps. cvii. 43).