Preaching and sacrament

"For [Roman Catholic dogmatics], then, preaching can have a place only on the extreme margin of the Church's action. In Roman Catholic practice it cannot seek to be more than instruction and exhortation. When the grace of Jesus Christ can be understood as a causare gratiam ex opere operato, all is in order, and this is the only possible order.

The Reformers, however, did not see themselves as in a position to construe the grace of Jesus Christ in this way. They thought it should be understood, not as cause and effect, but as Word and faith. For this reason, they regarded the representative event at the centre of the Church's life as proclamation, as an act concerned with speaking and hearing, indicative of the fact that what is at issue in the thing proclaimed too [sic] is not a material connexion but a personal encounter.

...the sacrament for the sake of preaching, not vice versa..." CD I.1, p69,70