The work is unique compared to other works during its time because Milton emphasises the deeds of individuals as the only way for there to be justice. The work also emphasises the freedom of the individual, and only through such freedom is an individual able to develop properly. Citing classical and biblical references, this emphasis refutes Hobbes’s divine right of kings. Milton argues that no man is better than another, having all been created in God's image, free and equal, and that all have a right to dispose of themselves. Further, he argues that their freedom and equality entitles them to inflict the same treatment upon the king they would receive at the hands of the law, that magistrates are empowered by the people: