te 14. Ibid., Vol. xx., p. 3.

Note 15. Luther's Works, Vol. xx., p. 195.

Note 16. Ibid., p. 257.

Note 17. Luther's Works, Vol. xxi., p. 63.

Note 18. The edition from which all our translations of Melancthon's
Letters are made is that of Niemeyer, published at Halle, in 1830,
entitled Philip Melancthon in Jahre der Augsburgischen Confession.

Note 19. Niemeyer's Melancthon, pp. 41-43.

Note 20. Ibid., p. 56.

Note 21. Niemeyer's Melancthon, p. 71.

Note 22. Niemeyer's Melancthon, p. 76.

Note 23. Niemeyer, p. 90, 91.

Note 24. Koethe's Melancthon's Works, Vol. I., p. 263.

Note 25. Ibid., p. 265.

Note 26. Ibid., p. 267.

Note 27. Luther's Works, Vol. XX., p. 199.

Note 28. Pfeiffer's Augapfel, second edit., p. 1045.

Note 29. Ibid. p. 1048.

Note 30. Pfeiffer's Aug. Appel., second edit., p. 1050.

Note 31. See the Lutheran Manual, p. 288, and Muller's Symb. Bucher,
p. 51.

Note 32. See Lutheran Manual, p. 289.

Note 33. Plea, &c., p. 15.

Note 34. Lutheran Manual, pp. 288, 289, and Muller's Symb. pp. 51, 52,
53.

Note 35. Pfeiffer's Augapfel, 2d ed., p. 1045.

Note 36. Mueller's Symb. Books, pp. 248, 249.

Note 37. Koethe's Melancthon's Werke, Vol. i., p. 250.

Note 38. Luther's Works, Leipsic ed., Vol. xxii., p. 338.

CHAPTER VI.
OF PRIVATE CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION.

This rite, in any sense of the term, that can be given to it in the
Augsburg Confession and other former symbols of the Lutheran church,
has long since been abandoned throughout our church in Europe,
excepting in that small portion of German churches, known as Old
Lutherans, and among those foreigners in the west of our country, who
constitute the Missouri Synod. It is historically unjust to apply the
term _private_ confession to that public confession of sins, made by
the congregation collectively, as part of our preparatory exercises
on sacramental occasions, and usually a misnomer to apply the name
private confession, to the habit of some of our German ministers,
(termed Anmeldung,) of having all communicants call on them for
conversation on their spiritual state, prior to sacramental communion.
Although these customs both grew out of private confession properly so
called, neither of them retains its essential elements.

Let us first inquire _what does the Augsburg Confession mean by the
phrase Private Confession_. Among the Romanists, _Auricular_
Confession is that rite, in which every individual of both sexe