Note 1783 — Chapter XXVIII · (continued 3)

Köstlin, “Luthers Theol.,” 2², p. 243. There were, however, always some voices raised amongst Protestants to demand that the “Sacrifice and Atonement” under some shape or form should be insisted on more than the sermon. The Presence of Christ, as taught by Luther, although this Presence did not involve a sacrifice, was made use of to oppose any further denuding of worship. “No longer is the Sacrifice and the Atonement which takes place at the Altar to be the centre of Divine worship,” Pastor E. Strack wrote in 1904, in “Der alte Glaube,” 1903-4, 5, col. 1255, “but, according to modern views, God is merely present in the listening congregation by virtue of the Word preached from the pulpit. Hence the pulpit becomes the central point, the altar an accessory. To this we cannot agree. Without atonement we have no God; hence no altar either ... and no pulpit.”