"Christianity had undermined all the temples of idolatry, and was enthroned as the established religion of the Roman empire. Ambitious men rallied about it as a great political power. Wicked men nominally embraced it as an essential step to worldly advancement. Christianity had thus, perhaps, more to fear from favoritism than from persecution. Unprincipled men, grasping at wealth and power, embraced Christianity merely as an instrument for the promotion of their own temporal aggrandizement. They hated its spiritual teachings, and endeavored to make it a religion of dead doctrines and of pompous ceremonies, rather than a rule to govern heart and life. They crucified Christianity while crowning it."
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The History of Christianity (1872), p. 330.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stevens_Cabot_Abbott
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John Stevens Cabot Abbott
John Stevens Cabot Abbott (September 19, 1805 – June 17, 1877) was an American historian, pastor, and author.
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