Catherine Booth Quotes on Faith, Holiness, Prayer and Witness
Catherine Booth preached for thirty years, first beside her husband William and then on her own, and she co-founded the Salvation Army with him. Her addresses were taken down as she spoke and printed afterward, so her lines still have the punch of the spoken word. She was blunt about sin, fierce about lukewarm religion and tender toward anyone who wanted to be saved.
Many Catherine Booth quotes online come without a source. Every quotation below is copied exactly from her books in TheWay Library, with the book and the address it comes from, so you can read each one in its setting. Old spellings and capitals are kept as printed. For her life story, see who was Catherine Booth. For a guide to her books, see Catherine Booth books.
On going after the lost
Her best-known message was that the church must go to the people. She had no patience with Christians who built a chapel and then waited for sinners to walk in.
Ye are my witnesses, and, if ye have the grace and love and light of God, it is at the peril of your soul if you hide it.
Aggressive Christianity, Witnessing for Christ
There is some one soul that you have more influence with than any other person on earth — some soul, or souls.
Aggressive Christianity, Aggressive Christianity
If Jesus had stood upon His dignity He would never have come to die between two thieves.
Aggressive Christianity, Adaptation of Measures
Get your heart full of the living water and then open the gates and let it flow out.
Aggressive Christianity, The World's Need
He loves to use the weak things, that the excellency may be seen to be of God.
Aggressive Christianity, Witnessing for Christ
Oh, who can tell what God can do by any man or woman, however timid, however faint, if only fully given up to Him.
Aggressive Christianity, The Holy Ghost
On repentance and saving faith
She refused any gospel that let people keep their sins. Repentance and faith, for her, were things a person actually did.
I believe God has made human salvation as easy as the Almighty, Infinite mind could make it.
Godliness, Repentance
Repentance is simply renouncing sin — turning round from darkness to light — from the power of Satan unto God.
Godliness, Repentance
Now, the truly repentant soul first sees sin; secondly, he hates sin; thirdly, he renounces sin.
Godliness, Saving Faith
Faith means TRUST — faith means ABANDONMENT — as if you were dying, and you had nothing left but the naked promise of God.
Godliness, Conditions of Effectual Prayer
No soul was ever saved yet who was TOO IDLE TO SEEK!
Life and Death, Religious Indifference
God never left a truly repentant soul in the dark.
Life and Death, Mercy and Judgment
God Himself cannot give peace to a soul holding on to sin, nor does He ever propose to do so.
Life and Death, A True and a False Peace
On assurance
Catherine Booth believed a Christian could know he was saved, and she said so plainly.
Faith is the means to assurance, but assurance is not faith, and faith is not assurance.
Aggressive Christianity, How Christ Transcends the Law
It is a great deal easier to get saved than it is to make yourself believe you are saved when you are not.
Aggressive Christianity, Assurance of Salvation
We make all of Christ; only it is a living Christ instead of a dead one.
Aggressive Christianity, Assurance of Salvation
On holiness and the real Christ
She was a holiness preacher. She believed Christ came to save His people from the power of sin, not only from its penalty.
He never undertook to be true instead of me, but to make me true to the very core of my soul.
Popular Christianity, The Christs of the Nineteenth Century Compared with the Christ of God
He never undertook to make me pass for pure, either to God or man, but to enable me to be pure.
Popular Christianity, The Christs of the Nineteenth Century Compared with the Christ of God
It has been the devil's plan from the beginning to make imitations of God's best things.
Popular Christianity, A Mock Salvation and a Real Deliverance from Sin
Salvation means restoration to goodness, to truth, to spiritual life, and to God.
Popular Christianity, A Mock Salvation and a Real Deliverance from Sin
God is either first or He is nowhere with us, individually.
Aggressive Christianity, Filled with the Spirit
We have glorious feelings as the outcome; but the feeling is not the religion — the feeling is not the holiness.
Godliness, Enthusiasm and Full Salvation
On the Holy Spirit
She pressed believers to seek the Spirit's fullness, and she warned that truth alone would never be enough.
God's way to exaltation is through the Valley of Humiliation.
Aggressive Christianity, Filled with the Spirit
No, it is the disobedient faith that is sent empty away.
Aggressive Christianity, Filled with the Spirit
They get enough light to light them down to damnation, but they do not get enough power to lift them into salvation.
Aggressive Christianity, The Holy Ghost
The want of all feeling on the subject of the soul's salvation is one of the signs of having quenched the Spirit.
Life and Death, Quench Not the Spirit
On prayer
The Spirit of God never leads the soul to a selfish prayer.
Godliness, Conditions of Effectual Prayer
I believe that more souls are convinced in real prayer, than in speaking.
Godliness, Conditions of Effectual Prayer
Faith in Jesus is God's expedient for bringing us back to obedience, and not for saving us in disobedience.
Papers on Practical Religion, Prevailing Prayer
On zeal and the cost of following Christ
She called her hearers soldiers, and she meant it.
Why should we be enthusiastic in everything but religion?
Godliness, Enthusiasm and Full Salvation
Any profession of Jesus Christ which brings no cross is all nonsense; it is not confession at all.
Popular Christianity, Popular Christianity: Its Cowardly Service Versus the Real Warfare
You cannot fight without wounds of body, heart, or soul.
Popular Christianity, Popular Christianity: Its Cowardly Service Versus the Real Warfare
Love to the King and concern for His interests must be the master passion of the soul.
Popular Christianity, Popular Christianity: Its Cowardly Service Versus the Real Warfare
Real faith dares trust God with consequences; a spurious faith must look after consequences itself!
Papers on Practical Religion, Conscience
On home and family
Last, two lines from a mother of eight.
No mother will succeed in begetting in her child a greater antipathy towards any sin than she feels for it herself.
Papers on Practical Religion, The Training of Children
Children brought up without love are like plants brought up without the sun.
Popular Christianity, Sham Compassion and the Dying Love of Christ
Where to read more Catherine Booth
These lines come from all five of her books in the library. If you want to read one book first, try Aggressive Christianity, her call to an outgoing, Spirit-filled faith. For the steps of the Christian life, from repentance to holiness, read Godliness. All her books are on the Catherine Booth author page, and our reading guide explains what's in each one.