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. XXVI.
of Augsburg Confession, being Topic V. of the Abuses Corrected, the