Reformation

In Common Sense, the Reformation is presented as a turning point whose significance reaches beyond Europe: Paine suggests that America was discovered beforehand so it could become a sanctuary for people persecuted in their homelands. The allusion helps frame separation from Britain not merely as a response to immediate conflict, but as an opportunity to secure a durable political order in a new place.

A Providential Sequence

Paine places the discovery of America before the Reformation in a suggestive sequence. He argues that the timing appears to show divine foresight: a refuge was made available for future generations when their homes could offer neither friendship nor safety. The Reformation therefore matters here less as a narrated episode than as the historical point of reference that gives the discovery of America a religious and political purpose.

From Imperial Dependence to Separation

That providential reading enters Paine’s wider case against dependence on Britain. He contends that colonial submission draws America into European wars and quarrels, setting it against nations with which it otherwise has no grievance. Because Europe is crowded with kingdoms and repeatedly subject to war, American commerce would be endangered whenever Britain fought another power. Paine presents separation as the means of escaping this inherited entanglement and pursuing trade without a partial European alliance.

He also argues that Britain cannot administer the continent justly from across the Atlantic. A petition might travel three or four thousand miles and wait four or five months for an answer, only to require another five or six months of explanation. The delay and distance make dependence increasingly impractical; in his comparison, a continent governed perpetually by an island reverses the order of nature. The Reformation allusion broadens this diagnosis: America’s separation can be understood as part of a providential opening beyond the dangers of Europe’s established political arrangements.

The Case for Independence in International Affairs

Paine argues that an explicit declaration of independence would change how other powers could respond to the conflict. While America called itself Britain’s subject, he says, another power could not properly mediate between the parties. France or Spain would have little reason to assist a movement that sought only to repair and strengthen the connection with Britain, and foreign courts would regard armed colonists who still claimed British subjecthood as rebels.

An American manifesto, by contrast, could describe the grievances and unsuccessful peaceful efforts, explain that continued life under the British court had become unsafe, and assure foreign courts of America’s peaceful intentions and desire for trade. Paine argues that such a declaration would do more for the continent than sending another shipload of petitions to Britain: independence would allow America to be received and heard abroad on the standing of other nations. In this way, the Reformation’s association with refuge supports a larger argument for political separation, while the proposed manifesto translates that claim into a practical appeal for international recognition.

Constitutional Freedom and Religious Difference

Paine connects the prospect of refuge to the character of the government America should establish. He warns that nations that fail to make their own laws may be forced to accept laws imposed by conquerors, and invokes William the Conqueror’s conquest of England as a case of law delivered at the point of the sword. His alternative is to form a constitutional charter first and then delegate authority to those who execute it, protecting the rights of each part of the union in religion, personal freedom, and property.

Religious protection, in Paine’s account, is an indispensable duty of government, but government has no further business with religion. He regards diversity of religious opinion as compatible with, and even useful to, Christian kindness: differing denominations are like members of one family who bear different Christian names. This position gives the sanctuary image a constitutional dimension. America’s promised refuge is not only a place away from persecution; it is a political community whose governing arrangements should protect conscience rather than impose religious uniformity.