The Fewness of the Saved
January 18, 2024
“YOU have heard, Reader, that there are very few elect. Here now the root of this truth. The reason why so many are lost eternally is that they convince themselves that there is a third way that the Gospel does not teach. The testimony of Truth Himself is that there is one broad way that leads to perdition and one narrow way that leads to life, and yet we seek a middle path: we do not consent to lead a life of enormous crimes but neither are we ready to embark on the narrow path of holiness, so instead we enter on a path that is neither too broad nor too narrow. But surely it is just as perilous to imagine a third way as to suppose a third possible destination when for adults in the long run only two exist. For it is written in Matthew XXV that the others shall go into eternal punishment but the just into eternal life. And this third track dreamed up by the lukewarm is the same we are warned of in Proverbs XIV: There is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the ends thereof leadeth to death.”
— Dominican theologian Vincent Contenson O.P. (1641-74)