How did Enlightenment thinkers approach the study of government? ...

Enlightenment thinkers believed that there should be a separation of powers (between the state and the church) and that popular rebellion against tyrannical powers should be accepted. They equally also wanted to change the political order, which they viewed as artificial (monarchy) into the natural order, such as what would later become democracy and that political power should be legitimate and by the consent of the people. There was also the notion and the theory that government should protect it's people, if they were elected by the consent of the people.