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However, in the 17th century writers like John Locke, Richard Overton and Roger William broke the link between territory and faith, which eventually resulted in a shift from territoriality to religious voluntarism.

It was Locke, who, in his Letter Concerning Toleration, defined the state in purely secular terms: " The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests.

" Concerning the church, he went on: " A church, then, I take to be a voluntary society of men, joining themselves together of their own accord.

" With this treatise, John Locke laid one of the most important intellectual foundations of the separation of church and state, which ultimately led to the secular state.