He goes on to say:
Third, on the basis of New Testament passages. Acts 19[:18]: “They were confessing their deeds.”
§ 114. (3) [Bellarmine’s] third class of scriptural statements contains the other four testimonies. (I) Acts 19[:18]: “Many of the believers came, confessing and telling their deeds.” Here the word “deeds” is understood to mean sins, and the word “telling” is understood to mean the specific enumeration of them.
We respond. Chrysostom (on Acts, homily 41) understands this passage to refer to miracles, and Luther follows him. Believers were coming, confessing, and telling their deeds; that is, they were publicly and joyfully declaring what God had done through them, just as “the seventy disciples returned with joy, praising the miracles of God” (Luke 10:17). But let us concede that it is speaking about the confession of sins. Still the point has not yet been made that it is speaking about a specific confession of sins. But again, let us grant that the text is speaking about a specific confession of some sins. It does not yet follow that an enumeration of all sins is necessary and, in fact, according to divine Law. A model is being proposed which we can imitate in a similar situation, but the Law neither prescribes it nor obligates absolutely all people to it. Nor can it be proven that the confession was made to priests. Rather, the context of the passage teaches that this was a public disclosure and confession made in the entire assembly of Christians, as Erasmus shows in his Annotationes [on this passage] from the word ἀναγγέλλειν [“tell”]. Finally, whether the believers were already baptized or not, a point which is of no little importance for this question, cannot be determined from the text. The Jesuit Lorinus writes on this passage:
From this passage Canisius, Gregorius de Valentia, Lindanus, Alphonsus de Castro, Hosius, Tapperus, Eck, Petrus à Soto, Baronius, Salmeron, and many others draw a conclusion in favor of private and sacramental confession. Indeed, I am terrified by the judgment of so many, lest I pass judgment on something as definite. I would not dare use the statement of Baronius: “It is certain.” For anyone may be able to counter that the passage is not in reference to those who had already been baptized but about catechumens already inclined in heart and will to the Christian religion, as happened quite often in this entire previous history, in which believers who had turned to the Lord are said to have believed before Baptism, though I am not unaware that the absolute term “believers,” as also “the faithful,” is used to refer to those who are consummately Christian, that is, to the baptized. Furthermore, Luke seems to be speaking about those whom he had named earlier as Gentiles and Jews who fled from the demons to the apostle, caught up as they were by an excessive fear because of the fallen exorcists. Finally, Basil, whose authority I admit completely overwhelms me, indicates only the opposite: for he says in his commentary on Acts that they confessed their sins to the apostles by whom they also were being baptized. Athanasius teaches the same thing. Let it be added that none of the older theologians proves sacramental confession from this passage, nor does the Catechismus concilii Tridentini nor any of the more recent theologians who have yet painstakingly pursued this argument. In fact, some of them deny that Luke is speaking here about this confession, or that this is proved from it, by the testimony of Basil.
He goes on to say:
It is the testimony of Andreas Vega that the words of Acts can be assigned to a confession in general which those who were accepting faith in Christ made at the time of the apostles before they received the Baptism of Christ. Eusebius (De demonstr. evang., bk. 3, ch. 8) clearly explains that immediately before this these people had been heathen and not Christians. Augustine indicates the same thing. Arator also clearly feels the same: that they confessed and burned their books to receive Baptism, which others certainly argue on the basis of the Greek words. Their thinking no more concludes sacramental confession from the word “confession” [ἐξομολόγησις] here than it would with John the Baptist (Mark 1:5) where the same word is used.
Those are the words of Lorinus.