Paine knew that the average colonist was not going to simply support a war for independence. He had to make it more than that. He used many common relations between the American cause and beliefs that colonists held close. He used many referrals to God in his writing. This referral was used, no doubt, to promote the idea that a war against Britain would be a war in support of God and religious ideals. The British were seen, by Paine, as trying to accumulate a power that he claimed belonged only to God. He helps arrouse support by stating that "God almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who had so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent". They would be protected with God on their side. The point being made that there were no peaceful methods left and that war would be accepted by God because thay tried several times before through peace but to no avail.