John 12:42

42. Many believed… did not confess Besides this class of persistent unbelievers, there was a many who were secretly convinced, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, but who, fearful of loss of position, concealed their convictions. Thus it often is that men intrenched in power, and predominating in society political, literary, ecclesiastical, are conservative of old errors and hoary iniquity; leaving the cause of reform, and the maintenance of truth, to the weaker, humbler, more ignorant, but more disinterested and less sophisticated classes. Thus is this rejection of Jesus a type fulfilled in nearly every age of advancement and beneficent revolution.