declaratively

Updated: May 28, 2025

That ministers may be called civil officers, for consider his words in his Re-examination, p. 11: “I do not exclude ministers, neither from ecclesiastical nor civil government, in a ministerial way, doctrinally and declaratively.” Compare this with his present answer, it will amount to thus much: That different denominations being taken from the different subject matter, ministers, when they handle doctrinally matters of religion, are ecclesiastical ministers; and when they handle doctrinally matters of civil government, which himself alloweth them to do, they are civil ministers.

George Gillespie - The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2)