With old odd ends stolen forth from holy writ / And seem a saint when most I play the devil." (Santamaria)

"And thus I clothe my naked villainy / With old odd ends stolen forth from holy writ / And seem a saint when most I play the devil."

That line is Shakespeare doing what he does best: throwing a lantern into a very human cellar. The trick he’s naming is old as Eden and modern as the latest religious “movement”—the art of dressing sin in church clothes, and then demanding applause for the outfit.

“And thus I clothe my naked villainy…”—that’s the confession of every hypocrite who learned that bare evil is often rejected, but evil in a choir robe can be hired as a consultant.

Scripture never treats this as a rare scandal. It treats it as a perennial hazard. There are wolves, and there are wolves who learned to bleat. There are liars, and there are liars who learned Bible vocabulary. Our Lord didn’t only warn us about open rebellion; He warned us about the kind of religion that uses God’s name as camouflage.

Christ’s most blistering sermons were not aimed at Roman soldiers or street prostitutes. They were aimed at professional holiness—the “seem a saint” industry. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites” is not a mild rebuke; it’s a funeral bell rung while the patient is still walking around (Matthew 23). He describes men who polish the outside of the cup while the inside is full of extortion and excess; whitewashed tombs—clean paint over dead bones. That’s Shakespeare’s “clothing” in biblical imagery: cosmetics on corruption.

And notice the material used for the costume: “old odd ends stolen forth from holy writ.” That is exactly how the devil likes his sermons—stitched together from verses ripped away from their meaning, as if Scripture were a thrift store. Satan himself preaches that way. In the wilderness he quotes Psalm 91 at the Son of God, not because he honors Scripture, but because he wants Scripture to serve his temptation (Matthew 4:6). The devil’s strategy is not always to make you hate the Bible—sometimes it’s to make you misuse the Bible with spiritual confidence.

That’s why Paul says Satan “is transformed into an angel of light” and his ministers “as the ministers of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:14–15). Not ministers of obvious wickedness—ministers of “righteousness.” The disguise works because it borrows the vocabulary of heaven. The most dangerous errors often arrive smiling, bearing a tract, with a verse on the cover and a knife behind the back.

Old School Baptists—especially the wary, anti-machinery, anti-religious-commerce sort—would read Shakespeare’s line and nod grimly, because they spent their lives watching “holy writ” get pressed into the service of human ambition. Their complaint wasn’t that Scripture was quoted too much. It was that Scripture was quoted as a prop, used to sanctify human inventions: boards, societies, fundraising schemes, moral crusades baptized as the kingdom of God, and endless programmatic “means” presented as if the Spirit of Christ were a dependent contractor who cannot work without a budget and a committee.

The Bible’s warning lights flash wherever religion becomes theatre. Isaiah says, “This people draw near me with their mouth… but have removed their heart far from me” (Isaiah 29:13). Jesus repeats it because it never stops being true (Matthew 15:8–9). Paul describes men “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5). That “form” can be very impressive. The devil is not threatened by your form. He’s threatened by truth in the inward parts (Psalm 51:6), by the living work of Christ that makes a sinner honest before God.

So what does this villainy look like in religious dress?

It looks like selective Bible—a pocketful of verses used like legal citations to excuse what God never commanded. It looks like “touch not, taste not, handle not” holiness, where man-made rules are marketed as spirituality (Colossians 2:20–23). It looks like “peace, peace” when there is no peace—soothing language applied to unrepented sin, or to churches that have traded the gospel for performance (Jeremiah 6:14). It looks like preaching that flatters donors, honors the influential, and quietly edits out the parts of Scripture that wound pride (James 2:1–4). It looks like zeal that is loud in public and cold in secret—praying to be seen, giving to be applauded (Matthew 6:1–5).

And it also looks like something subtler: moral activism that becomes a substitute for Christ. That’s where “I seem a saint when most I play the devil” gets especially lethal. A man can crusade against society’s sins while never confessing his own. A movement can thunder about vice while quietly feeding greed, vanity, faction, and spiritual tyranny. You can “sugar o’er the devil himself” by sprinkling pious language on what is essentially pride—pride that wants to control, pride that wants to be right, pride that wants to be admired, pride that wants the throne and will use Bible words as steps.

The Old School instinct here is not cynicism; it’s discernment. It asks: is this thing born of the Spirit, or of the flesh? Does it exalt Christ, or does it exalt a cause, a leader, a machinery, a brand? Does it produce humility, tenderness, repentance, and patient endurance—or does it produce noise, numbers, and self-congratulation? Scripture gives tests. “By their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:16). Not by their slogans, not by their posters, not by their “statement of faith” (which can be immaculate while the heart is rotten), but by fruit.

And Christ’s warning in Matthew 7 is terrifying precisely because it targets religious success. “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied… cast out devils… done many wonderful works?” (Matthew 7:22). Notice: the defence is ministry achievement. The verdict is: “I never knew you.” That’s the end of “seeming.” God is not impressed by spiritual resumes. He looks at the heart, and He knows the difference between a man who loves Him and a man who uses Him.

So what’s the antidote?

First: the fear of God—the real one, not the stage version. Hypocrisy thrives where God is treated as an audience to be managed. The fear of God treats Him as what He is: the living, holy, all-seeing Judge before whom every disguise melts. “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13). Shakespeare says “naked villainy.” Scripture says God already sees the nakedness. Hypocrisy is an attempt to hide from the One you cannot hide from.

Second: the gospel of sovereign grace—because it murders the ego that needs costumes. If salvation is of the Lord, then boasting dies (Jonah 2:9; Ephesians 2:8–9). The hypocrite loves a system where he can display his virtue and collect moral wages. Grace says, “You have no wages. You have need. You have sin. You have Christ.” That is why moralistic religion so often hates free grace: grace strips the costume rack bare.

Third: honest repentance—the kind that starts at home. Not theatrical repentance used to protect reputation, but the plain confession: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned” (Psalm 51:4). The hypocrite repents in public so he can continue in private. The child of God repents because he cannot bear to be false before his Father.

Fourth: simple, Scriptural worship and church life—not religious spectacle. The more Christianity becomes an industry, the more opportunity there is for “villainy” to dress itself as “ministry.” The New Testament pattern is not complicated: word, prayer, ordinances, mutual exhortation, discipline, charity—done in the fear of God, under Christ’s headship, by the Spirit’s power. When you build towers of machinery, you create hiding places for ambitious men.

Finally: love of truth—not merely love of being right. Paul warns of those who “received not the love of the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:10). Hypocrisy can quote truth without loving it. Loving truth means you want it to cut you first. You want Scripture to rule you, not serve you. You want Christ to be Lord, not mascot.

Shakespeare’s line is a warning, but it can also be a mercy. It forces the question that every soul must face sooner or later: am I using Scripture to cover myself, or am I being uncovered by Scripture so that Christ may cover me?

Because there is a holy covering—not the hypocrite’s patchwork, but God’s own provision. Adam’s fig leaves were the first religious costume; God replaced them with garments He provided (Genesis 3:7, 21). That points beyond Eden to the only covering that actually works: the righteousness of Christ. Blessed is the man whose sin is covered—not by performance, not by borrowed phrases, not by “old odd ends stolen forth from holy writ,” but by the blood and obedience of the Savior (Psalm 32:1; Romans 4:7–8).

The hypocrite “seems a saint” while playing the devil. The saved sinner is often painfully aware he is no saint by nature—yet he clings to a real Savior. One life is theatre. The other is truth: a sinner brought low, Christ lifted high, and God glorified—without sugar, without costume, without a mask.