“There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed.”

— Rufus Choate

Speech before the New England Society (22 December 1843)
Possibly related to :
The Americans equally detest the pageantry of a king and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop.
Junius, Letter xxxv (19 December 1769)
It established a religion without a prelate, a government without a king.
George Bancroft on Calvinism, in History of the United States (1834), Vol. III, Ch. vi.
Oh, we are weary pilgrims; to this wilderness we bring
A Church without a bishop, a State without a King
Anonymous poem "The Puritans' Mistake", published by Oliver Ditson (1844).

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Rufus Choate 11

American politician 1799–1859

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“The Church was the preserver of the remnants of intellectual culture, the sole schoolmistress of the raw peoples. Her clergy long had almost a monopoly of education, and were the secretaries of the nobles, the chancellors and prime ministers of kings.”

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“Our national unity was the secret of the force of each of the members. New York could not be New York nor Ohio be Ohio without Massachusetts and without Georgia. And a government which had not the right to coerce had not the right to exist.”

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“The basic principal of this government is the will of the people. A system was devised by its founders which seemed to insure the means of ascertaining that will and of enacting it into legislation and supporting it through the administration of the law. This was to be accomplished by electing men to make, and men to execute the laws, who, would represent in the laws so made and executed the will of the people. This was the establishment of a representative government, where every man had equal voice, equal rights, and equal responsibilities. Have we such a government today? Or is this country fast coming to be dominated by forces that threaten the true principle of representative government?”

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“The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.”

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Volume 1, Chapter 2 "Of the Union and Internal Prosperity of the Roman Empire, in the Age of the Antonines" http://www.ccel.org/ccel/gibbon/decline/files/volume1/chap2.htm. The portion regarding the views of the religions of the time taken by various constituencies has been misreported as Gibbon's own assessment of religion generally. See Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (1990), pp. 34–35.
The bold text has been misattributed to Lucretius and Seneca the Younger.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)
Source: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Context: The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.
Context: The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.
The superstition of the people was not embittered by any mixture of theological rancour; nor was it confined by the chains of any speculative system. The devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different religions of the earth. Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey, perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief, and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture of the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not discordant materials.

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“In view of this grave and unprecedented outrage, the House may be assured that his Majesty's Government will take without delay appropriate steps to vindicate the authority of the law and to protect officers and servants of the King and his Majesty's subjects in the exercise of their duties and in the enjoyment of their legal rights.”

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“There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed.”

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Rufus Choate 11

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