Yet two things must be required of them, (of the Reformers,) that both men and women should attend confession at least once a year, &c.; secondly, to confess all the sins you _can_ recollect." [Note 6] _Dr.Plank_, in his celebrated and elaborate History of the Origin and Changes of the Protestant Doctrinal System, [Note 7] speaking of the negotiations between the Reformers and Papists during the Diet of Augsburg, says, "On the subject of the Confessional _there was an entire agreement_, for they (the Reformers) had declared that they regarded Confession as a very useful institution, and had no idea of suffering it to fall, and also regarded it as good, that the people should be accustomed to confess their sins," viz., at the confessional.
_Siegel_, in his Manual of Christian Ecclesiastical Antiquities, [Note 8] after stating that Luther rejected _Auricular_ Confession, as a sacrament, and a means of oppressing the conscience, adds: "But, on the other hand, Luther was as unwilling as Melancthon, to have _private confession_ abolished, and the latter had, in his Loci Theologici, pronounced private absolution to be as necessary as baptism." In regard to confession in the Lutheran Church of Germany, the fact is, that private confession, which the Reformers so earnestly recommended, is almost entirely abandoned and changed into a general (and public) confession, which may with more propriety be termed preparatory services to the Lord's Supper." Finally, we will add the testimony of only one more witness, _Prof.
Jacobson_, in the excellent _Theological Encyclopedia of Dr.Herzog_, now in progress of publication in Germany, who says, "Whilst the compulsory part of the institution (private confession,) fell to the ground, each one was left to judge whether and how much he would confess.

The institution itself _was retained_, and _private confession_ especially recommended.

The Augsburg Confession presupposes it (private confession,) _as the rule:_" Our custom is not to give the sacrament to those who have not first been confessed and absolved;" and the Smalcald articles [sic] teach that Confession and Absolution must by no means be allowed to be omitted in the church." [Note 9] After all this testimony, it may be regarded as incontestably established, that the former symbolical books of our church do teach _private confession_ and absolution, with some modifications, and hence, that the church in Sweden and Denmark _always rejected this part of the Augsburg Confession_, in practice, and that the entire church in Germany and the United States, which now use a _public_ confession, have made a similar departure from the teachings of the Augsburg Confession as well as of Luther, Melancthon and the other Lutheran reformers.
2.

That _this rite of private confession, is unauthorized by any command of the Word of God, in so clear, that the Symbolical books themselves admit it_, and commend the rite merely on the ground of human expediency, and inferential scriptural reasoning.

The same acknowledgment is made by the Plea of the Rev.Mr.Mann.In Art.