<P> According to U.S. President John Adams, Ponet's work contained "all the essential principles of liberty, which were afterward dilated on by Sidney and Locke", including the idea of a three - branched government . </P> <P> In due course, opposition to the divine right of kings came from a number of sources, including poet John Milton in his pamphlet The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, and Thomas Paine in his pamphlet Common Sense . Probably the two most famous declarations of a right to revolution against tyranny in the English language are John Locke's Essay concerning The True Original, Extent, and End of Civil - Government and Thomas Jefferson's formulation in the United States Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal". </P>

Who introduced the concept of divine kingship to ancient mesopotamia