A hundred years ago Diderot, the notorious French encyclopedist, wrote: "Better times will not come for the world until the last king shall have been hanged with the guts of the last priest." [...]

If only theologians and teachers of religion would not make themselves so contemptible and hated by their own fault! Alas! this sad fact is recorded not only in the annals of the history of the Church, but it is also confirmed by our own experience. There are too many teachers of religion who misuse their sacred office, their sacred profession and calling, for the gratification of their worldly minds, their greed of money and glory, and their love of domineering. They do not only hush and even deny the truth continually, partly from a miserable fear of men, partly from an abominable favor of men, but instead of preaching the pure Gospel, they proclaim the very opposite and spread lies and errors. Why, there is no vice too shameful, no crime too awful, but teachers of religion have desecrated their office with it and have given the world offense, grievous beyond utterance.

Is this fact to deter you, my friends, from continuing your devotion to the study of theology? God forbid! Consider, in the first place, that the omniscient God has foreseen these sad events and has nevertheless in His infinite wisdom adopted this order of administering the sacred office, not through the holy angels, who did not fall from their holy estate, but through fallen men, who are subject to sin.

--- C.F.W. Walther, "Thirty-Ninth Evening Lecture (November 6, 1885)", The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel