If we have a form of religion on the outside but inside we are opposed to the rulers of the church as well as to kings and princes, we are using our faith as a pretext for evil.
As free people, and not as those who have freedom as a veil for malice. Truly free people do good, who, the greater the freedom they enjoy among men, the more strictly, or rather more freely, they are subjected to divine servitude. But those also act as truly free who, in the example of the patriarch Joseph, although they are oppressed by human servitude, are compelled by no art to be slaves of vices. But indeed, they turn their freedom into a veil for malice, who, the less they are restrained by the yoke of human servitude, are the more widely enslaved by the dominion of sins; and when they serve their vices with impunity, they call it freedom, covering their guilt with this name. However, it can be understood generally according to that statement of the Apostle Paul: "You were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh" (Gal. V). For we are rightly called free, who through baptism are freed from the bonds of sins; who, redeemed from demonic servitude, because made sons of God, have not received a greater faculty or license of sinning by such a gift of freedom; rather, if we sin, we immediately, having lost freedom, become slaves of sin. And whoever thinks that he is freed by the Lord for this reason, that he may sin more licentiously, such a person changes his freedom into a veil for malice. But blessed Peter wishes us to be free from the servitude of faults, so that we may be able to remain good and faithful servants of our Creator; whence he subsequently adds:
But as servants of God. Honor everyone, etc. Therefore, he urges to give due honor to all, and, according to the command of the Lord, to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's (Luke XX). And it is commendable that he commands the free also to love the brethren, so that they likewise remember that those who are subject to them by temporal condition have been made their brothers in Christ, invoking the Father together with them who judges without partiality.
We have been set free from the world. We have become citizens of heaven. This verse does not imply, according to John Chrysostom, that the apostle now wants us to be subject once again to earthly powers and to obey them. No, we are to obey them as free people, honoring the one who has delivered us and who has told us to do this for his sake. Similarly you must not have any kind of evil in your mind, like disobedience or hardness of heart. You must not use your freedom as a pretext for refusing to obey. We might add that someone who is free according to the Lord would never do anything absurd or foolish.
[AD 202] Irenaeus on 1 Peter 2:16