In the year 1685, being in Carrick, John Clark of Moorbrook, being with him, said, “Sir, what think ye of this time? Is it not a dark and melancholy day? Can there be a more discouraging time than this?” He said, “Yes, John, this is a dark, discouraging time, but there will be a darker time than this; these silly, graceless creatures,
the curates, shall go down; and after them shall arise a party called Presbyterians, but having little more than the name, and these shall, as really as Christ was crucified without the gates of Jerusalem on Mount Calvary bodily—I say they shall as really crucify Christ in His cause and interest in Scotland, and shall lay him in His grave, and His friends shall give him His winding sheet, and He shall lie as one buried for a considerable time. Oh! then, John, there shall be darkness, and dark days, such as the poor Church never saw the like, nor shall ever see, if once they were over; yea, John, they be so dark, that if a poor thing would go between the east sea-bank, and the west sea-bank, seeking a minister to whom he would communicate his case, or tell him the mind of the Lord concerning the time, he shall not find one.” John asked, Where the Testimony should be then? He answered, “In the hands of a few, who will be despised and undervalued of all, but especially by these ministers, who buried Christ; but after that He shall get up upon them, and at the crack of His winding-sheet as many of them as are alive, who were at His burial, shall be distracted and mad with fear, not knowing what to do. Then, John, there shall be brave (glorious) days, such as the Church of Scotland never saw the like; but I shall not see them, though you may.”