to speak or write thereof otherwise than as was then declared by him, in accordance with the contents of this decree and declaration.' The whole of this saving clause by his predecessor Pope Clement then cancelled, on the ground that the plea of requirement and advantage would only serve to leave a door open to alienations injurious to the Church, and this severe sentence against the personal disposition of Popes to enrich favourites at the expense of the institution they were elected to preside over was indorsed by Alexander VII., when he especially included the whole text of Clement's rescript in his elaborate confirmatory Bull of every stringent enactment by predecessors on this subject.
From these facts, it results clearly that however great the solemnity which successive Popes sought to attach to these prohibitory declarations against alienations of Church properties, it yet never amounted to a sacredness inviolable even for pontifical authority. The very circumstance of so many repeated confirmations by spontaneous Papal edicts would of itself be sufficient to set aside such a hypothesis. A dogma is not reaffirmed by successive Popes, but
