Daily Inspiration Quote by Donald Cargill

Holiness first, competence second: Cargill is laying down an ordering principle that turns private conscience into a prerequisite for public action. The line isn’t pious throat-clearing; it’s a hard argument about political efficacy. “God’s great and public matters” sounds expansive, almost civic. Yet he insists no one can “do anything to purpose” until they are “right in their conditions” - a phrase that smuggles in the Covenanting worldview that spiritual state and public duty are inseparable.

Context sharpens the edge. Cargill, a Scottish Covenanter executed under Charles II’s regime, preached in a world where worship style, church governance, and loyalty oaths were treated as matters of state. When he says he hasn’t thought “the things concerning our times little,” he’s anticipating the obvious critique: that focusing on personal holiness dodges the urgent crises of persecution and political repression. He rejects that false choice. His claim is that activism without inward rectitude is not merely hypocritical; it’s strategically useless. The subtext is a rebuke to expediency: the temptation to compromise, to sign, to conform “for the greater good,” to treat integrity as negotiable in the face of pressure.

Rhetorically, the sentence stacks verbs like a deposition: “followed,” “taught,” “been.” It reads like testimony delivered under threat, because it is. Cargill’s intent is self-justification, yes, but also instruction to his community: don’t confuse urgency with purpose. If the public fight is sacred, the combatant must be formed for it. In that logic, martyrdom becomes not tragedy but proof of coherence.