Religious liberty

Religious liberty in Common Sense is a civil right that a new government must guarantee and a boundary it must not cross. Thomas Paine argues that a continental charter should protect the free exercise of religion according to conscience, and that government’s religious duty is confined to protecting conscientious practitioners. He presents diversity of belief not as a threat to be managed but as an occasion for Christian kindness, while condemning attempts to enlist religion in political conflict.

A right secured by constitutional design

In his proposed Continental Charter, Thomas Paine places freedom of religion alongside freedom and property as a right to be secured for all. The charter is not merely a statement of aspirations: it is a solemn bond in which the whole community undertakes to uphold the rights of every part, including religious liberty. Its purpose is to define the framework of government before delegates exercise power, so that protection does not depend on the temporary disposition of officeholders.

The charter’s religious guarantee belongs within a broader continental settlement. Paine proposes that a Continental Conference bring together members of Congress, representatives of colonial assemblies or conventions, and representatives chosen by the people. That body would set the respective jurisdictions of Congress and the assemblies, secure rights, and then dissolve; the institutions formed under the charter would govern. Religious freedom is thus one of the rights built into the structure of political authority, rather than a privilege left to the discretion of a ruler or a single local body.

Government’s limited religious duty

Paine distinguishes protection from religious control. He calls it an indispensable duty of government to protect people who conscientiously profess a religion, but says he knows no other business government has with religion. The distinction makes conscience a protected sphere while refusing the state authority to dictate belief or impose uniformity. A government faithful to this account safeguards the conditions in which people can practice; it does not claim jurisdiction over the convictions that guide them.

That limit is part of Paine’s account of government’s purpose. Government arises because moral virtue cannot reliably govern everyone, and its proper end is freedom and security. It is a necessary institution, not a sacred power entitled to rule every part of life. Paine’s call to protect religious practice therefore sits beside his insistence that political authority be restrained: government is justified by the security it provides, not by a religious mandate to supervise the conscience it is meant to protect.

Diversity as a source of kindness

Paine explicitly rejects the fear that religious variety threatens public life. He says he conscientiously believes that the Almighty wills diversity of religious opinions among the people. If everyone thought alike, he reasons, religious dispositions would lack the field in which they could be tested; differences instead create opportunities to exercise Christian kindness. He likens the various denominations to children of one family, differing only in their Christian names. The image makes shared kinship, rather than doctrinal sameness, the basis for living together.

This defense of diversity gives religious liberty a positive ethical meaning. Freedom of conscience is not merely an arrangement that prevents conflict between competing sects. It allows people to meet difference through charity, and lets religious conduct be tested in relations with those who believe otherwise. Paine’s proposed protection therefore joins civic security to a moral practice: people are to enjoy their civil and religious rights and, in turn, help secure those rights for others.

Scripture, kingship, and political action

Paine’s political argument draws on biblical accounts of kingship, but he does not treat religious authority as a warrant for passive acceptance of every government. He invokes Gideon’s refusal to rule Israel and the account of the people’s demand for a king to argue that scripture condemns monarchy. In the story of Samuel, the demand to be like other nations is followed by a warning that a king will take the people’s sons, daughters, land, produce, and servants. Paine reads that account as a direct protest against royal power, not as a command to accept it unquestioningly.

This reading also informs his criticism of political quietism. In answering a Quaker political testimony, he challenges the claim that setting up or putting down governments belongs exclusively to God and that believers should have no hand in such changes. If its authors truly accepted that principle, he argues, they should wait for events rather than publish a political intervention. By issuing the testimony, they have entered the political dispute whose legitimacy they deny. Paine’s point is not that religion should be subordinated to a political faction; it is that religious professions should be consistent, and should not be used to forbid political action while themselves attempting to shape political judgment.

The danger of making religion a party

Paine’s objection to the Quaker testimony culminates in a warning about the consequences of mixing religion with politics. First, he says, such a publication risks bringing religion itself into reproach by making it a participant in political disputes. Second, it presents a body of people as approving a testimony that many of them disavow. Third, it threatens the continental harmony and friendship that charitable donations had helped establish. The objection thus concerns both religious integrity and the political costs of claiming a whole community’s assent where it does not exist.

His farewell to the Quakers makes the distinction between protecting religion and weaponizing it explicit. Without anger or resentment, he wishes that they may enjoy every civil and religious right without interruption and help secure the same rights for others. At the same time, he urges every inhabitant of America to disavow and condemn the example of mingling religion with politics. Religious liberty, in this closing formulation, requires both sides of a civic obligation: freedom for conscientious practice and restraint against turning religious authority into a partisan instrument.