“Sherman’s thought, however, in theology, as in everything else, was clear and plain. In 1789, he published, in New Haven, a sermon of his own composition. A year later he exchanged several long letters with Rev. Dr. Samuel Hopkins of Newport, in which he attacked that divine’s peculiar doctrine that a man ought to be willing to suffer eternal damnation, if need be, for the glory of God. Calvin was quoted as an authority for this, by the advocates of “Hopkinsianism.’ ‘Calvinists,’ replied Sherman, ‘do not found their faith on the authority of his opinions: that would be to entertain an opinion contrary to his, viz., that the word of God is the only rule of faith in matters of religion.’ “In 1765 Sherman accepted the position of Treasurer of Yale College, filling it until 1776, when the cause of American independence demanded all his energies. He came to this office during the last years of President Clap’s administration, and held it through most of the long _interregnum_ during which Professor Daggett was acting President. It was, as I have said, a dark time for the College; a day of small things. Daggett and Sherman were for some years the only permanent officers. The means of the institution were slender, and the utmost economy was necessary to secure its maintenance. Sherman’s prudence and business judgment were here of substantial service, though the struggle of the College then was more to live than to grow. “He was also in a position to befriend it, where it then much needed support, before the Legislature. There was a long and strong effort during the last half of the eighteenth century to bring it under State control. Here, writes President Stiles in his Literary Diary, he was ‘ever a friend to its interests, and to its being and continuing in the hands of the clergy, whom he judged the most proper to have the superintendency of a _religious_, as well as a _scientific_, college.’[34]