Box 5 contains material pertains to one of Bentham’s works on religion, Church of Englandism and Its Catechism Examined (1818). This work was part of Bentham’s sustained attack on the English political, legal, and ecclesiastical establishments. Bentham always argued that religion should bear no influence upon morals and legislation, and came to suggest that religious belief was used by the clergy to promote their own interests. Bentham was particularly critical of the role of the Church of England in education, whether this was in its schools for the poor, or its domination of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge (the ‘two public nuisances’, according to Bentham, ‘storehouses and nurseries of political corruption’. In Church-of-Englandism, Bentham recommended the ‘euthanasia’ of the Church, that is, as ecclesiastical offices became vacant, they should be left unfilled and abolished.

• Folios 1 to 32: Subscriptions, obstacles [before 1800]
• Folios 33 to 39: Principles of ecclesiastical policy [c.1800]
• Folios 40 to 41: Church - contents - of forms of religious exercise [c.1800]
• Folios 42 to 58: Church, marginal contents [C.1800-15]
• Folios 59 to 62: Church, Juggernaut Utility, Sleeping laws, Sabbath [no date]
• Folios 63 to 83: Church, form, preface [c.1812-13]
• Folios 84 to 86: Church, divinity a science [c.1812-13]
• Folios 87 to 89: Church, Athanasius [c.1812-13]
• Folios 90 to 93: Church, III, fragments [c.1812-13]
• Folios 94 to 316: Church, II Doctrine, topics [1812-13]

Please Note: Some material from Box 5 has been published in Church-of-Englandism and its Catechism Examined, eds. J.E. Crimmins and C. Fuller, Oxford, 1993.

Box 5 Progress

Untranscribed: 0
In Progress: 0
Ready For Review: 0
Completed: 290
Total: 290