Throughout his Second Treatise of Government, Locke is very serious about the power of religion—and the binding power of divine law. In Chapter 16, during his discussion of "conquest," Locke uses hyperbole and simile to emphasize how this "eternal law" is strong enough to constrain even an absolute monarch:
…[Princes] owe subjection to the laws of God and nature. No body, no power, can exempt them from the obligations of that eternal law. Those are so great, and so strong, in the case of promises, that omnipotency itself can be tied by them. Grants, promises, and oaths, are bonds that hold the Almighty: whatever some flatterers say to princes of the world, who all together, with all their people joined to them, are, in comparison of the great God, but as a drop of the bucket, or dust on the balance, inconsiderable, nothing!
"Omnipotency itself"—that is, absolute power itself, like that wielded by the hypothetical monarch in Locke's passage—pales in comparison to the divine law to which Locke believes everyone, regardless of their social status or political position, is ultimately subject. This is a classic example of the kind of hyperbole that drives Locke's most emphatic arguments: his political philosophy relies on his articulation of an extraordinary divine will that drives humanity toward self-organization within government, and such a worldview inevitably comes with a bit of melodrama.
Locke's extreme language continues in this passage with his simile that compares the great leaders of the world, or the princes, to a "drop of the bucket” in the face of God. Locke wants the reader to remember that everything on earth (including politics, society, and human law) is small change compared to the power of God and divine law.
