Death disarmed of its sting

by Lyman Hotchkiss Atwater

2. Let us consider briefly the extent of this deliverance. It is perfect. It is co-extensive with sin and all its dismal fruits; if sin abounds, grace doth much more abound. The destruction of sin, involves the removal of all its direful effects, the whole ghastly retinue which it brings with it. Christ the second Adam restores us to the primeval perfection, glory and bliss, which we lost by the apostacy of the first Adam. The parts of this restoration are successive and gradual, so that it is not wholly consummated, till the body is raised and glorified at the last day. But it is wholly and forever secured by the first act of true faith. For we are "justified by faith." And whom God justifies, them he also glorifies, and none shall be able to separate them from his love or pluck them out of his hands. With respect to the condemning or penal power of sin, deliverance is perfect at the moment of our union to Christ by faith, and ever afterward: for there is "no more condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." Whatever sorrows, sufferings or calamities visit the believer, they are not a part of the curse and penalty of the law. They are chastisements sent in fatherly love and faithfulness, and not in vengeance; not willingly, but for our profit; for the very purpose of promoting our deliverance from sin. As to sin itself, at the new birth, it receives a mortal blow, by being subjected to a reigning principle of holiness, which is then born into life, and is ever waxing stronger and stronger until death, when it extirpates the last remnant of sin, and the spirits of the just are made perfect in holiness. Although ever dying, sin is never perfectly extinct in this life; it is the heaviest burthen under which the believer groans in this tabernacle; its end is the sweetest part of the deliverance which death brings with itself. With respect to the body, it is not freed from the pains and infirmities in this life, which belong to its frail and perishing nature. Nor does it escape death. It is not renovated and glorified till the last day, when the archangel's trump shall wake from the grave its slumbering tenantry, the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed; "our vile bodies fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." But at death it sleeps in Jesus. Its pains are forever ended. The disembodied spirit is already glorified with Christ in Paradise, awaiting its reunion to the glorified body. Thus death has lost its whole sting: nay, it is the birth-throe of an endless, glorious and blissful life. There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest, undisturbed by the slightest annoying sensation. They shall hunger no more and thirst no more, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth, yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, their works do follow them."

3. And who receive this stupendous deliverance? To whom rightly belongs this strangely rapturous outburst, which sheds a halo of glory even over sepulchral darkness? I answer to those who die in the Lord; i. e. to those who are joined to Christ by a living union. This union is constituted by faith, which lays hold of and rests upon Christ as he is offered to us in the gospel, and gives us an interest and participation in all the benefits of his salvation. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life"—he shall not perish or come into condemnation. The just are saved by faith through grace—they walk by faith—they live by faith, and overcome and triumph by faith. Without this faith it is impossible to please God. Unbelief is a rejection of Christ; he that believeth not is condemned already.

But since there are divers sorts of faith on which men rely for an interest in this inestimable boon, we must distinguish that which is dead and spurious, from that which is living and genuine. Omitting much that might be said on this topic, I will only observe that true and saving faith shows itself in correspondent works, in a life of holy, conscientious obedience to all the requirements of God. Without such works, faith is declared by the Apostle to be dead. Ye are my friends, says Christ, if ye do whatsoever I command you. And any other faith than that which leads us to walk in all the commands and ordinances of the Lord blameless, gives no warrant for the triumphant exclamation, "O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory!" But he that truly believeth, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and in his dying moments may with truth adopt the words of Simeon: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

The full and well-founded conviction that death has lost its sting and the grave its victory, with respect to our deceased, beloved and revered friend, whose breathless body now lies before us, chiefly assuages the grief produced by this melancholy dispensation of divine Providence. It has diffused a sensation of gloom, as wide-spread as his honorable fame. But we sorrow not as those without hope. He ended a consistent and exemplary Christian life, with a serene and peaceful death. After a life in which his piety had been known by its fruits, and when the signs of death were stealing upon him with an unexpected and surprising rapidity, he assured me that in the prospect of a speedy dissolution, he felt supported by the consolations of that gospel he had long professed, and that he rested calmly on that Savior, who had ever been, and now seemed peculiarly, his only hope. And when the dying hour came, he seemed free not only from the mental sting, but the physical agonies of death. There was not a pang, not a struggle, not even a motion of a muscle, beyond the mere gasp of expiring nature. So wholly had death lost its sting. It was good to be there notwithstanding the gloom: to see the venerable servant of God calmly and placidly falling asleep in Jesus, "quite on the verge of heaven." "Mark the perfect man, behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."

It is due to the occasion, to present such a sketch of his life and character as the time will permit.

The Hon. Roger Minott Sherman was born at Woburn, Mass., May 22, 1773, and was the youngest of six children of Rev. Josiah Sherman, then the Congregational minister of that place. His father was in the fourth line of descent from Captain John Sherman, who emigrated from Dedham, in England, to Watertown, Mass., about the year 1635. He was brother to the Hon. Roger Sherman, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and raised himself from a humble condition to a celebrity for statesmanship, that brightens with the lapse of time. The mother of Judge Sherman was Martha, daughter of the Hon. James Minott, of Concord, Mass., one of the distinguished men of his time, and in the fourth line of descent from George Minott, who was born in England, was one of the first settlers of Dorchester, Mass., and a ruling elder in the church in that place thirty years. Owing to the disturbances produced by the Revolution, Judge Sherman's father removed in 1775 to Milford, in this state, and was for some time pastor of the second church in that town. He thence removed to Goshen in this state, and was pastor of the church in that place several years. He finally removed to Woodbridge, near New Haven, where he preached the remainder of his life, and now lies buried. Of his children, the four oldest were daughters, the two youngest sons. They are all now dead, Judge Sherman having been the last survivor.

In 1789, at the age of sixteen, Mr. Sherman entered the Sophomore class in Yale College. Six weeks afterwards his father died, leaving no property, since his income, like that of most ministers, had been barely equal to his current expenses. He was thus deprived of the means on which he had relied for defraying his college expenses. But by the kindness of his uncle,[A] who received him into his family and rendered him other important aid, together with his own exertions, he was enabled to go through the academic course. He kept a school in New Haven during a considerable portion of his two last college years, and at the same time attended regularly all the exercises of his class, and graduated with a high standing. He then took an academy in Windsor, and commenced the study of law under the Hon. Oliver Ellsworth. He afterwards took a common school in Litchfield, and continued the study of law under the Hon. Tapping Reeve. In March, 1795, he was appointed a tutor in Yale College, and instructed the class that graduated in 1797, at the same time pursuing his professional studies under the Hon. Simeon Baldwin, who still outlives his pupil, and is here to attend his burial. In his own class in college were several distinguished men. The class which he instructed also numbers several eminent names. In the office of tutor he was peculiarly successful. Instead of relying on official authority or magisterial airs to gain an ascendency over his pupils, he rather won their respect and esteem by the ability and faithfulness of his instructions, the benignity of his manners, and the justness of his discipline. His extraordinary power of disentangling the intricate, mastering the profound, and making the obscure plain, combined with a rare faculty of expression, must have rendered him a most able and brilliant instructor.

After holding this office somewhat more than a year, he resigned it, and in May, 1796, was admitted to the bar in New Haven. He then established himself as a practicing lawyer at Norwalk. On Dec. 13, of the same year, he was married to Miss Elizabeth Gould, daughter of Dr. Wm. Gould, then of New Haven, previously of Branford, sister of the late Judge Gould of Litchfield, who after a happy conjugal union of forty eight years, near half a century, is still spared to mourn his loss. They had but two children, twin sons of high promise; but by an inscrutable Providence they were cut down, and as we trust, are sleeping in Jesus. In 1807 he removed to this place, where he has since resided for a term of near forty years; and has become so identified with all our social and public interests, that there is no sphere in which his loss will not be deeply and intensely felt.

Mr. Sherman had not long pursued the practice of law, before his powerful intellect and untiring industry raised him to that high eminence in his profession, of which he had already given promise. He realized the most sanguine anticipations of his friends. As a jurist he had few equals, and scarcely a superior in the country. While he most excelled in handling abstruse, mazy questions of law, he maintained the very first rank in whatever belongs to his profession. His legal knowledge, his logical skill, his high persuasive powers, his commanding eloquence, his unwearied industry, his faithfulness to his clients, gave him the highest success and celebrity in every department of legal practice, attracted to him an overflowing business in this and other counties of the state, and often led to a demand for his services in great cases in other states. Seldom does the bar suffer the loss of so distinguished an ornament.

From 1814 to 1818 Mr. Sherman was a member of the upper branch of our state legislature, in which he distinguished himself by his thorough knowledge of the laws, policy and institutions of the state, his mastery of all subjects under discussion, his high power in debate, his assiduous attention to business, his patriotic devotion to the welfare of the people. Though among the younger members, he rose rapidly to an ascendant influence.